The findings in this thesis represent research that was undertaken at the University of Canterbury on the topic of participation in tertiary education by students from low decile backgrounds. This work focuses on students from low decile backgrounds participating in university education. In addition to a review of the relevant literature and policies, interviews were conducted with 13 students who were enrolled at the University at the time of the interview, one University staff member employed in a position responsible for fostering greater participation by students at four low decile schools in Christchurch, and interviews with three career staff at the low decile schools in Christchurch. The focus was placed on low decile students due to the use of school decile as a proxy for social class due to the difficulty of sorting participants by social class. The interviews were conducted during 2005 and 2006, while enrolment statistics were gathered from the University of Canterbury and the Ministry of Education for the period of 1999 to 2004. This information is represented in the study to help highlight the inequalities in participation rates based on students attending different decile schools. The interviews in particular identified themes in the experiences of the students when they were talking about their decision to attend university and their school life. The literature review as well as the use of Bourdieu's theory regarding the influence of social, cultural and economic capital was important in the development of this work. The thesis uses the theory and literature as a starting point, and a reference point that locates it within the field of sociology and education. In particular Nash's work in the New Zealand context offers useful connections between his findings and this current work while also providing at times mediation between the theory of Bourdieu and the findings in the research. This research has found a number of areas where students had very similar experiences and these are reflected in the four findings chapters of policy, schools and career teachers, family and peer groups. There is a clear understanding by students and staff alike about educational outcomes, and the commonly accepted outcome of class based inequalities in education. The implications of the findings in this study broadly include concerns over the way participation is counted, access to financial assistance while studying, and the quality of advice being given by career teachers. There remain also ongoing concerns about the impact that culture and class have on the decisions made by individuals. Out of the findings of the research a number of recommendations for future study were generated. It is hoped these will encourage further work in the area of participation in education, particularly in regard to the policy areas of the way student enrolments are counted, the government financial assistance that is offered, and the approach of schools towards careers education. The final aim of any further work however should be to move the field of education research closer towards finding a way to equalise the participation rates between the different social classes.

This paper holds a study of Swedish inequality from 1900-1985 with specific focus on the half-decades of 1900-1905 and 1980-1985. Subsequently constructed data and contemporary news outlets are presented to develop further understanding upon how inequality was depicted in comparison to data. Through a comparison of the time-periods, the developed understanding and changed stance of the public on the issue of inequality is examined. This method of examination gives new insight upon how the widening knowledge of inequality during the 1900s, through the development of micro-economic measurements, as well as more complete tax returns, has affected the depiction of the issue. The results of the study suggest that news articles of the latter period (1980-1985), tend to be more data-based than during the former time-period, where general assumptions were more frequent. It additionally suggests that the decreased inequality over the 20th century did not lessen the discussion of inequality, but rather the opposite. The news articles furthermore do not discuss inequality in relation to the presented data - the long-term changes are not clearly stated in the news outlets - but are in conclusion unconsciously considered, through the general knowledge of current inequality, through tax levels etc.

In the present paper, we identify several distributions from Physics and study their applicability to phenomena such as distribution of income, wealth, and expenditure. Firstly, we apply logistic distribution to these data and we find that it fits very well the annual data for the entire income interval including for upper income segment of population. Secondly, we apply Fermi-Dirac distribution to these data. We seek to explain possible correlations and analogies between economic systems and statistical thermodynamics systems. We try to explain their behaviour and properties when we correlate physical variables with macroeconomic aggregates and indicators. Then we draw some analogies between parameters of the Fermi-Dirac distribution and macroeconomic variables. Thirdly, as complex systems are modelled using polynomial distributions, we apply polynomials to the annual sets of data and we find that it fits very well also the entire income interval. Fourthly, we develop a new methodology to approach dynamically the income, wealth, and expenditure distribution similarly with dynamical complex systems. This methodology was applied to different time intervals consisting of consecutive years up to 35 years. Finally, we develop a mathematical model based on a Hamiltonian that maximises utility function applied to Ramsey model using Fermi-Dirac and polynomial utility functions. We find some theoretical connections with time preference theory. We apply these distributions to a large pool of data from countries with different levels of development, using different methods for calculation of income, wealth, and expenditure.

During 2010 and 2011, major earthquakes caused widespread damage and the deaths of 185 people in the city of Christchurch. Damaged school buildings resulted in state intervention which required amendment of the Education Act of 1989, and the development of ‘site sharing agreements’ in undamaged schools to cater for the needs of students whose schools had closed. An effective plan was also developed for student assessment through establishing an earthquake impaired derived grade process. Previous research into traditional explanations of educational inequalities in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and New Zealand were reviewed through various processes within three educational inputs: the student, the school and the state. Research into the impacts of urban natural disasters on education and education inequalities found literature on post disaster education systems but nothing could be found that included performance data. The impacts of the Canterbury earthquakes on educational inequalities and achievement were analysed over 2009-2012. The baseline year was 2009, the year before the first earthquake, while 2012 is seen as the recovery year as no schools closed due to seismic events and there was no state intervention into the education of the region. National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) results levels 1-3 from thirty-four secondary schools in the greater Christchurch region were graphed and analysed. Regression analysis indicates; in 2009, educational inequalities existed with a strong positive relationship between a school’s decile rating and NCEA achievement. When schools were grouped into decile rankings (1-10) and their 2010 NCEA levels 1-3 results were compared with the previous year, the percentage of change indicates an overall lower NCEA achievement in 2010 across all deciles, but particularly in lower decile schools. By contrast, when 2011 NCEA results were compared with those of 2009, as a percentage of change, lower decile schools fared better. Non site sharing schools also achieved higher results than site sharing schools. State interventions, had however contributed towards student’s achieving national examinations and entry to university in 2011. When NCEA results for 2012 were compared to 2009 educational inequalities still exist, however in 2012 the positive relationship between decile rating and achievement is marginally weaker than in 2009. Human ethics approval was required to survey one Christchurch secondary school community of students (aged between 12 and 18), teachers and staff, parents and caregivers during October 2011. Participation was voluntary and without incentives, 154 completed questionnaires were received. The Canterbury earthquakes and aftershocks changed the lives of the research participants. This school community was displaced to another school due to the Christchurch earthquake on 22 February 2011. Research results are grouped under four geographical perspectives; spatial impacts, socio-economic impacts, displacement, and health and wellbeing. Further research possibilities include researching the lag effects from the Canterbury earthquakes on school age children.

The subject of this thesis is an analysis of the family policy in the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic. Families with children are supported, either indirectly through tax measures or directly through the state social benefits. The main form of support for families with children in both countries is direct support. There is more emphasis on supporting low-income families in both the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic therefore I devoted a crucial part of my work to this issue. The tax measures and various welfare benefits are defined in the theoretical part. The practical section first deals with the redistribution aspects of the family policy, where the main objective is to determine whether both countries are complying with the redistribution function, followed by the comparison, where differences of supporting families with children in the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic are described.

Cette thèse, divisée en trois chapitres, contribue à la vaste et récente littérature sur l'évaluation des actifs et la finance climatique. Le premier chapitre contribue à la littérature sur la finance climatique tandis que les deux derniers contribuent à la littérature sur l'évalutaion des actifs. Le premier chapitre analyse comment les politiques environnementales visant à réduire les émissions de carbone affectent les prix des actifs et la consommation des ménages. En utilisant de nouvelles données, je propose une mesure des émissions de carbone du point de vue du consommateur et une mesure du risque de croissance de la consommation de carbone. Les mesures sont basées sur des informations sur la consommation totale et l'empreinte carbone de chaque bien et service. Pour analyser les effets des politiques environnementales, un modèle de risques de long terme est développé dans lequel la croissance de la consommation comprend deux composantes: le taux de croissance de la consommation de carbone et le taux de croissance de la part de la consommation de carbone dans la consommation totale. Ce chapitre soutient que le risque de long terme de la croissance de la consommation provient principalement de la croissance de la consommation de carbone découlant des politiques et des actions visant à réduire les émissions, telles que l'Accord de Paris et la Conférence des Nations Unies sur le changement climatique (COP26). Mon modèle aide à détecter le risque de long terme dans la consommation des politiques climatiques tout en résolvant simultanément les énigmes de la prime de risque et de la volatilité, et en expliquant la coupe transversale des actifs. La décomposition de la consommation pourrait conduire à identifier les postes de consommation les plus polluants et à construire une stratégie d'investissement minimisant ou maximisant un critère environnemental de long terme. Le deuxième chapitre (co-écrit avec René Garcia et Caio Almeida) étudie le rôle des facteurs non linéaires indépendants dans la valorisation des actifs. Alors que la majorité des facteurs d'actualisation stochastique (SDF) les plus utilisés qui expliquent la coupe transversale des rendements boursiers sont obtenus à partir des composantes principales linéaires, nous montrons dans ce deuxième chapitre que le fait de permettre la substitution de certaines composantes principales linéaires par des facteurs non linéaires indépendants améliore systématiquement la capacité des facteurs d'actualisation stochastique de valoriser la coupe transversale des actifs. Nous utilisons les 25 portefeuilles de Fama-French, cinquante portefeuilles d'anomalies et cinquante anomalies plus les termes d'interaction basés sur les caractéristiques pour tester l'efficacité des facteurs dynamiques non linéaires. Le SDF estimé à l'aide d'un mélange de facteurs non linéaires et linéaires surpasse ceux qui utilisent uniquement des facteurs linéaires ou des rendements caractéristiques bruts en termes de performance mesurée par le R-carré hors échantillon. De plus, le modèle hybride - utilisant à la fois des composantes principales non linéaires et linéaires - nécessite moins de facteurs de risque pour atteindre les performances hors échantillon les plus élevées par rapport à un modèle utilisant uniquement des facteurs linéaires. Le dernier chapitre étudie la prévisibilité du rendement des anomalies à travers les déciles à l'aide d'un ensemble de quarante-huit variables d'anomalie construites à partir des caractéristiques de titres individuels. Après avoir construit les portefeuilles déciles, cet article étudie leur prévisibilité en utilisant leurs propres informations passées et d'autres prédicteurs bien connus. Les analyses révèlent que les rendements des portefeuilles déciles sont persistants et prévisibles par le ratio de la valeur comptable sur la valeur de marché de l'entreprise, la variance des actions, le rendement des dividendes, le ratio des prix sur les dividendes, le taux de rendement à long terme, le rendement des obligations d'entreprise, le TED Spread et l'indice VIX. De plus, une stratégie consistant à prendre une position longue sur le décile avec le rendement attendu le plus élevé et à prendre une position courte sur le décile avec le rendement attendu le plus bas chaque mois donne des rendements moyens et un rendement par risque bien meilleurs que la stratégie traditionnelle fondée sur les déciles extrêmes pour quarante-cinq des quarante-huit anomalies. / This thesis, divided into three chapters, contributes to the vast and recent literature on asset pricing, and climate finance. The first chapter contributes to the climate finance literature while the last two contribute to the asset pricing literature. The first chapter analyzes how environmental policies that aim to reduce carbon emissions affect asset prices and household consumption. Using novel data, I propose a measure of carbon emissions from a consumer point of view and a carbon consumption growth risk measure. The measures are based on information on aggregate consumption and the carbon footprint for each good and service. To analyze the effects of environmental policies, a long-run risks model is developed where consumption growth is decomposed into two components: the growth rate of carbon consumption and the growth rate of the share of carbon consumption out of total consumption. This paper argues that the long-run risk in consumption growth comes mainly from the carbon consumption growth arising from policies and actions to curb emissions, such as the Paris Agreement and the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP26). My model helps to detect long-run risk in consumption from climate policies while simultaneously solving the equity premium and volatility puzzles, and explaining the cross-section of assets. The decomposition of consumption could lead to identifying the most polluting consumption items and to constructing an investment strategy that minimizes or maximizes a long-term environmental criterion. The second chapter (co-authored with René Garcia, and Caio Almeida) studies the role of truly independent nonlinear factors in asset pricing. While the most successful stochastic discount factor (SDF) models that price well the cross-section of stock returns are obtained from regularized linear principal components of characteristic-based returns we show that allowing for substitution of some linear principal components by independent nonlinear factors consistently improves the SDF's ability to price this cross-section. We use the Fama-French 25 ME/BM-sorted portfolios, fifty anomaly portfolios, and fifty anomalies plus characteristic-based interaction terms to test the effectiveness of the nonlinear dynamic factors. The SDF estimated using a mixture of nonlinear and linear factors outperforms the ones using solely linear factors or raw characteristic returns in terms of out-of-sample R-squared pricing performance. Moreover, the hybrid model --using both nonlinear and linear principal components-- requires fewer risk factors to achieve the highest out-of-sample performance compared to a model using only linear factors. The last chapter studies anomaly return predictability across deciles using a set of forty-eight anomaly variables built using individual stock characteristics. After constructing the decile portfolios, this paper studies their predictability using their own past information, and other well-known predictors. The analyses reveal that decile portfolio returns are persistent and predictable by book-to-market, stock variance, dividend yield, dividend price ratio, long-term rate of return, corporate bond return, TED Spread, and VIX index. Moreover, a strategy consisting of going long on the decile with the highest expected return and going short on the decile with the lowest expected return each month gives better mean returns and Sharpe ratios than the traditional strategy based on extreme deciles for forty-five out of forty-eight anomalies.