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This thesis examines the perceptions of poverty and own-poverty held by people living in poor communities, and uses these to understand their realities as evident in the risks they face and the livelihood strategies they carry out. It engages with the debate on relationships between perceived poverty and objective indicators which dominate the poverty discourse. A comparative analysis of rural and urban areas is carried out motivated by literature findings on differences in perceptions between these areas. Qualitative and quantitative data was collected during seven months of fieldwork (2006) in relatively poor areas of Lagos state, South-West Nigeria. Perceptions of poverty in a highly populated and commercial area such as Lagos were found to be consistent with the factors that have informed traditional approaches to poverty. However, the identification of the poor based on perceptions of own-poverty differed remarkably from that based on locally identified indicators of poverty, and relative deprivation was found to be a key explanation. In using the perceptions of poverty and own-poverty to further understand the realities of poverty as understood by the poor, risks and livelihoods are also examined. The poor are faced with risks which they have limited capacities to insure themselves against and health risks featured prominently as the most anticipated and realised risk. Informal risk-sharing was the main risk-response used, however its capacity to cope is limited. Livelihood diversification is also a response to risks and in analysing this further (with a focus on the rural poor), a diversification spectrum made up of three categories: the least, mid and highly diversified, was constructed. The majority of those who perceived themselves as poor were in the middle of the spectrum and were engaged in a non-farm activity, suggesting that diversification into non-farm activities was not necessarily the preferred option in their perspective.

For economists who study the growth theories, the most critical issues they are trying to deal with are the sources of long-term growth and the problem of inequality. Stimulated by the endogenous growth theories, a substantial amount of studies focus on how technology improvement and human capital in education promote economic growth. In this thesis, however, we focus on another important source of growth, the role of health in generating economic growth and generating development traps. We discuss the issues of long-term growth and inequality in the first two essays respectively and examine empirically the relationship between health and economic growth in the last essay. / In the first essay, we analyze the endogenous growth generated by health accumulation. We extend the Barro (1996b) model to consider both the positive and negative effects of health by endogenizing the health depreciation rate. We consider three forms of health depreciation rate: constant health depreciation rate, health depreciation rate determined only by health, and health depreciation rate determined simultaneously by health and education. We also consider the situation when health affects economic growth through entering the utility function directly. By comparing the results from the optimization processes, we find that whether health enters the utility function does not affect long-term growth. What really matters is the specific form of health depreciation rate. / In the last essay, we complement the first two essays by analyzing empirically the relationship between health expenditure and economic growth. We summarize that there are three main categories of macroeconomic empirical research on the relationship between health and economic growth. Relatively few focuses on how health investment affects economic growth. We analyze this relationship in the last essay by employing both the Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992) model and the Bassanini and Scarpetta (2001) model. Several econometric methods are used for robustness checking. The statistical results show that health expenditure at least has non-negative effect on economic growth. / In the second essay, we analyze the issue of health related development traps. Various mechanisms of health related development traps have been proposed by recent literature. The general characteristics of these mechanisms are that there are stable multiple equilibriums. However, the statistics show that the gap between the rich countries and the poor ones are actually widening from 1960 to 2007. To explain this phenomenon, we develop another mechanism to generate health related development traps, through which the gap between the developed and developing countries is widening. To check the sensitivity of the results to the specific form of health utility function, we also employ a more general form of health utility function. / Huang, Liang. / Adviser: Li Hongyi. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-04, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-218). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

This thesis empirically investigates the effects of two main financial liberalisation policies namely interest rate liberalisation and capital market liberalisation on capital formation and economic growth in ten Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1970 to 2014. The empirical analysis employs revised time series and panel estimation techniques. The time series methodology allows for structural breaks in the multiple regression analysis, unit root tests, cointegration tests as well as Granger causality tests. The panel data methodology employs both fixed effects and random effects estimation techniques. A major novelty of this thesis is that it incorporates the so-called Mundlak procedure in the panel data methodology that enables the decomposition of the effects of each of the two financial liberalisation policies on capital formation and growth into transitory effects and permanent effects. Overall, the time series results provide evidence of mixed effects. Although, interest rate liberalisation and capital market liberalisation have significant positive short run effects on capital formation and economic growth in majority of the countries, there is evidence that the long run effects of both liberalisation policies are insignificant. The Mundlak decomposition provides evidence that the transitory effect of interest rate liberalisation is to boost capital formation and economic growth, and that capital market liberalisation tends to be insignificant to capital formation and growth in the short run. The Mundlak decomposition also provides evidence that both interest rate liberalisation and capital market liberalisation have a permanent effect on economic growth, but the permanent effect of both liberalisation policies on capital formation is insignificant. On the balance of evidence, there is an indication that the introduction of both financial liberalisation policies may not be as beneficial as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund claim and may not be a safe road to capital formation and growth, at least in the Sub-Saharan African region.

This thesis investigates empirically three questions of key relevance for the life of disadvantaged people in developing countries. Using a sample of Ethiopian women and a regression discontinuity design exploiting age discontinuities in exposure to a law that raised the legal age of marriage for women, the first chapter documents for the first time (a) the effect of increasing the legal age of marriage for women on infant mortality and (b) the causal effect of early cohabitation on infant mortality. The analysis shows that, even though it was not perfectly enforced, the law that raised the legal age of marriage had a large effect on the infant mortality of the first born child. Furthermore, the estimates suggest that the effect of a one-year delay in women's age at cohabitation on the infant mortality of the ffrst born is comparable to the joint effect on child mortality of measles, BCG, DPT, Polio and Maternal Tetanus vaccinations. Using longitudinal data from northern Ghana, the second chapter shows that parents allocate more schooling to children that are more cognitively able. These results provide evidence for the main prediction of the model of intra-household allocation of resources developed in Becker (1981), which concludes that parents allocate human capital investments reinforcing cognitive differences between siblings. The third chapter uses the 8.8 Richter magnitude earthquake that struck Chile in February 2010 as a case study and employs a difference in difference strategy to investigate whether natural disasters have lasting effects on property crime. The results show that the earthquake reduced the prevalence of property crime the year of the earthquake and that this effect remained stable over the 4 post-earthquake years studied. The lasting drop in crime rates in affected areas seems to be linked to the earthquake strengthening community life in these municipalities.

Agricultural commercialisation via increased market participation and innovation adoption has been widely argued to reduce poverty. However, empirical evidence suggests that both of these are persistently low in developing countries. Recent analyses suggest that different types of transaction costs and social capital may influence both market access and innovation adoption decisions. This thesis investigates these two factors in agricultural commercialisation and poverty reduction. Using data from three GLSS survey rounds, Chapter 1 investigates the determinants of the decision to sell as well as the decision of how much to sell, focusing on the role of transaction costs. The empirical analysis is carried out at household level and for a specific crop (maize). A Heckman two-step model is used to control for self-selection into market participation, using measures of fixed transaction costs as identifier variables. The overall results, although generally consistent with previous literature, show an unexpected positive relationship between remoteness and market participation, which might reflect peculiarities of Ghanaian crop marketing systems. Chapter 3 investigates the relationship between social capital and innovation using primary data on 305 Ghanaian farmers collected during field work in 2012 (described in Chapter 2). The chapter analyses innovation (the decision to adopt, its timing and intensity) at crop level, focusing on a non-traditional cash crop, exotic varieties of mango. The analysis investigates the role of different types of social capital, both in disaggregated and aggregated forms. The results suggest that social capital should not be overlooked in the innovation process, supporting recent evidence that there exists a positive relationship between the “know-who” and adoption dynamics. Finally, Chapter 4 investigates the impact of innovation adoption on objective and subjective measures of poverty. Matching techniques are used to estimate the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated, using primary data. The results show that adoption does not impact objective poverty but it does have a significant positive impact on self-perceived poverty status.

This study is one of the first attempts to understand the long-term mechanisms of poverty dynamics at the household level in rural villages in Thailand. It does so by identifying dynamic patterns of poverty and by examining the factors and processes that underlie poverty dynamics in two major rice production regions of Thailand, namely, Khon Kaen province in the Northeast, Thailand's poorest region, and Suphanburi province in the Central plain, one of the richest regions of the country. The study is based on a survey of a panel of 240 households that were originally interviewed in 1988, and followed and interviewed again in 2009 for the purpose of this longitudinal study. The contrast between the survey areas is deliberate and has been useful for comparing economic and social structural changes of rural households across two decades, as well as examining disparities in the opportunities and resources between the two regions. In order to capture the complex and multidimensional nature of poverty, the study combines quantitative and qualitative methods in the analysis of poverty dynamics in Thailand. A quantitative survey analysis was merged with qualitative assessments by using the same sampling frame and then sequentially integrating life history interviews. The results show that both quantitative and qualitative approaches provide similar patterns of poverty transition. Notably, the study has found that the proportions of households moving into and out of poverty were higher than those remaining in chronic poverty, similarly to most experiences of poverty mobility in other developing countries. In addition, the study demonstrates the benefits of using a mixed-method approach for examining the factors underlying poverty dynamics. The study argues that combining these two approaches provides a richer insight of how rural households' economic, social and demographic characteristics have been associated with poverty dynamics. A number of similar factors that influence households' poverty dynamics were identified in both quantitative and qualitative approaches. These include asset factors, demographic factors and employment factors. However, the qualitative approach has provided further insight into additional contextual factors and processes not easily identified by the quantitative approach, notably the impact of ill-health shocks and behavioural factors. Understanding the distinction between the patterns of poverty dynamics and the mechanisms explaining them is of crucial importance for policy interventions. The implications derived from this study of poverty dynamics seek to strengthen poverty reduction efforts in Thailand, as well as to derive useful lessons to other developing countries.

In Argentina and Brazil, the future never seems to arrive. Over the last three decades, successive waves of neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist reforms invariably ended in disappointment. The most relevant question defying the contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian political economy literature is why, despite being repeatedly predicted in economic programs and promised in political discourses, catch-up development never materialises? Neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist authors offer apparently contradictory answers to that question. For the former, economic underachievement is a result of insufficient or ill-conceived pro-market reforms. For the latter, it is a consequence of the lack of state-led national development projects. In this thesis, I challenge both mainstream narratives. I claim that the roots of Brazilian and Argentinian permanent underachievement are intrinsically related to the fragilities of neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist development strategies, which result in inherently inconsistent policies. Although representing themselves as complete opposites, both sides actually share two problematic premises: a narrow view of development, understood as capitalist catch-up, and a simplified opposition between state and market. My critique starts from a radical reappraisal of the very concept of development, informed by Leon Trotsky's idea of uneven and combined development and its contemporary interpretations. Defining development as the dynamic outcome of the interplay between class disputes and international pressures and opportunities, I argue that the shortcomings of the neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist reforms were determined by the specific responses given by dominant class alliances in the face of successive international crises. The argument is advanced through four in-depth case studies of the state reforms carried out in Brazil and Argentina since the 1990s, with particular attention to macroeconomic and foreign policies. By breaking the oligopoly of narratives about Brazilian and Argentinian development shared by neoliberals and neodevelopmentalists, I aim to contribute to the rise of alternative strategies of development from below.

This thesis investigates how involvement in networks contributes to firm-level upgrading in emerging markets. In the 1990s, the international de-localisation of production and global integration has brought about a process of upgrading for firms in the transition and latecomer industrialising countries that allowed them to approach the technological frontier and enhance their competitive position. Hence, the firm-level upgrading became a process of improving technological and organisational deficiencies in the firms' knowledge base, particularly through knowledge transfer and learning in networks they have involved in, enabling them to adjust to the new environment by doing things differently and/or better as well as doing different things. The literature on upgrading stresses the effects of value chains and production networks on industrial upgrading, while the role of various learning mechanisms is largely unexplored. Employing an evolutionary perspective, this thesis contributes to existing analyses by considering the role of knowledge networks and by using ‘learning in networks' as a bridging concept, by which the interaction between inter- and intraorganisational knowledge transfer is demonstrated to have significant bearing on hastening the process of catching-up in emerging markets. Specifically, this thesis examines what characteristics of the networks of Polish food-processing and clothing firms affect learning mechanisms in an inter-organisational context and how these mechanisms combined with internal factors supporting internalisation of externally acquired knowledge (including firm strategy orientation) contribute to various types of firm-level upgrading during the period 1989-2001. Methodologically, this thesis proposes a dynamic model of firm-level upgrading with a novel unit of analysis: the relationships of the firm. So, rather than using firm case studies, it provides statistical evidence typically lacking in the upgrading research, while not sacrificing the in-depth nature of case studies, as each relationship of the firms studied has been investigated through face-to-face interviews that are translated into a dataset of relationships analysed using multinomial logistic regressions. First, the network-related characteristics of external learning mechanisms were identified and then used as a reference point in the upgrading analysis. The results for product upgrading largely confirm the previous findings in the literature. However, the upgrading of production processes is a function of learning from advances in science and technology through knowledge networks. Strikingly, learning-by-interacting in production networks actually appears to impede managerial (rather than functional) upgrading, a previously unexplored upgrading type, which is also shown to be a prerequisite for functional upgrading. While learning-by-training and research within the firm is a potent condition for external learning mechanisms to contribute to all of the upgrading types, for successful functional upgrading, it is a must. These findings show the importance of the use of an integrative approach to learning in research on upgrading.

by Wong Hong Man Thomas. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-69). / Acknowledgements / Abstracts / Chapter Chapter1 --- Introduction / Chapter 1.1 --- Appropriate Role of Government in Economic Development 1 - --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2 --- Government and Infrastructure --- p.3-4 / Chapter 1.3 --- "Division of Labor, Intermediate Inputs and Economic Development" --- p.4-6 / Chapter 1.4 --- "Relationships Among Infrastructure, Intermediate Inputs and Final Goods" --- p.7-11 / Chapter Chapter2 --- Literature Review / Chapter 2.1 --- The related Work in Literature of Development Economics --- p.12-14 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Related Work in Literature of Economics of Infrastructure --- p.14-15 / Chapter 2.3 --- The Related Work in Literature of Increasing returns to Scale and Multiple Equilibria --- p.15-19 / Chapter Chapter3 --- The Basic Model / Chapter 3.1 --- Basic Assumption of the Model --- p.20-20 / Chapter 3.2 --- Technology and Increasing Returns to Scale --- p.21-23 / Chapter 3.3 --- Market Equilibrium Conditions --- p.23-25 / Chapter 3.4 --- Relative Cost Function --- p.25-33 / Chapter Chapter4 --- Government Policy and Production Cost / Chapter 4.1 --- Relative Cost Function and the Selection of Equilibrium --- p.34-43 / Chapter Chapter5 --- Government Policy and National Income / Chapter 5.1 --- Optimal Level of Public Input --- p.44-50 / Chapter 5.2 --- The Ranking of Equilibria --- p.50-54 / Chapter 5.3 --- The Mismatch --- p.54-56 / Chapter Chapter6 --- Concluding Remarks --- p.57-61 / Figure 1 --- p.62-62 / Appendix A --- p.63-63 / Appendix B --- p.64-66 / Reference --- p.67-69