Technological change bears the promise of addressing environmental problems without reneging on economic development. However, taping its full potential requires an understanding of its drivers and barriers. The three chapters of this dissertation are a modest attempt at casting light on some of the factors that can foster technological change towards more environmental-friendly technologies. In Chapter One, I provide the first quantitative evidence that the Montreal Protocol, and its following amendments to protect the ozone layer, triggered a large increase in research and innovation on alternatives to ozone-depleting molecules. To do this, I use the full text of patents and scientific articles and implement a difference-in-differences strategy and a synthetic control method. To compare molecules’ chemical and industrial characteristics, I construct descriptive variables by applying machine learning techniques to the documents’ text. In Chapter Two, I investigate barriers to adopting solar lanterns in the context of rural Indian households. I design and implement a randomized controlled trial on people’s willingness to pay for such lanterns, and find that, despite the relative simplicity of the product, information barriers to adopting solar lanterns remain high. Chapter Three theoretically investigates firm-level barriers to green technological change. I outline a mechanism that explains why coordination at the industry level might be necessary. I argue that radical innovations (such as electric cars) require complementary innovations in interdependent components, and show that, when technological change requires investment by both suppliers and producers, coordination within an industry is needed and can be difficult to obtain.

This dissertation examines how matching -- in marriage markets and labor markets -- can change under certain market circumstances and under different information provisions. The first two chapters analyze marriage market, with a particular focus on the impacts of cross-border marriage in marriage markets. Given the severely male-biased sex ratios in many Asian countries including China and India, demands for foreign brides are expected to grow in the near future. In the first chapter, I theoretically investigate the impacts of cross-border marriage on marital patterns and surplus division of couples. I use a frictionless transferable utility matching framework to analyze how cross-border marriage affects matching patterns and marital shares for couples. In the second chapter, I test the model's predictions, focusing on Taiwan (a wealthier side with male biased sex ratios) and Vietnam (a poorer side with balanced sex ratios in the marriage market). I find that cross-border marriages are predominantly made up of Taiwanese men and Vietnamese women; Taiwanese men are selected from the middle level of the socioeconomic status distribution, and Vietnamese women are positively selected. Moreover, cross-border marriage significantly affects men and women who stay in their own countries without engaging in cross-border marriage, by altering marriage rate, matching partners, and intra-household allocations within the households. My results suggest that changes in trade and immigration policies can have far-reaching implications on marital outcomes and women's bargaining power. The third chapter investigates job and jobseeker matching in labor market. Specifically, it explores whether inaccurate expectations of job seekers about their competitiveness contribute to poor job matching in developing countries. We utilize the largest online job portal in the Middle East and North Africa region to evaluate the effect of an intervention providing information about own competitiveness to job applicants. Providing information about the relative fit of an applicant's background for a particular job causes job seekers to apply for jobs that are better matches given their background. The effects of information are the largest among entry-level workers with higher levels of education, who generally face the highest unemployment rates in the region. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that changes over time in demand for skills in the job market may lead to inaccurate expectations that hinder labor market matching. Improving the efficiency of online job search may be particularly welfare-enhancing in the Middle East and North Africa region given that the young, highly-educated subpopulation that faces the greatest labor market hurdles also has the highest level of internet connectedness.

This dissertation is a collection of three essays on price and welfare. The first chapter investigates the optimal price index for central banks to stabilize in a model economy where volatile prices are harmful to welfare through monetary friction. The second chapter estimates the impact of recent technological innovation, namely the internet, on the dynamics of prices and welfare through a variety of real mechanisms. The third chapter analyzes the impact of financial regulation on the prices of financial assets and the welfare of the financial market participants. There is currently a debate about what price index central banks should target when economies are open and exposed to international price shocks. Chapter 1 derives the optimal price index by solving the Ramsey problem in a New Keynesian small open economy model with an arbitrary number of sectors. This approach improves on existing theoretical benchmarks because (1) it makes an explicit distinction between the consumer price index (CPI) and the producer price index (PPI), and (2) it allows exogenous international price shocks to play a role. Qualitatively, I use the analytical expression of the optimal price index to discuss that popular indices, such as the PPI and the core/headline CPI, are suboptimal because they ignore the heterogeneity in price stickiness and the effect of inflation on the trade surplus. Quantitatively, I calibrate a 35-sector version of the model for 40 countries and show that stabilizing the optimal price index yields significantly higher welfare than alternative indices. In Chapter 2, which is joint work with Yoon J. Jo and David Weinstein, we estimate the impact of e-commerce on Japanese prices and welfare. First, we consider the possibility that e-commerce may have lowered prices by driving down the average prices of goods available online. Second, we compute the welfare gains due to the ability of e-commerce to enable consumers to purchase goods from other regions. Third, we compute the gains that arise through e-commerce's ability to arbitrage intercity price differences. We find that all three channels produced welfare gains in Japan, but our estimates suggest that the first and second channels are by far the most important, with welfare gains through these channels being eleven to sixteen times larger than through the price arbitrage channel. Overall, we find that increased inter-city arbitrage raised Japanese welfare by 0.12 percent, the gains due to new varieties available through online shopping raised welfare 0.7 percent, and the gains due to overall price reductions for goods available online raised welfare by 1 percent. In Chapter 3, which is joint work with Sakai Ando, we analyze the impact of dealer regulation on price quality (informativeness and volatility) and its implications for the welfare of market participants. We argue that although price informativeness, volatility, and the dealer's profitability all deteriorate, against conventional wisdom, other market participants are better off due to the dealer's risk-shifting motive. A static model is used to clarify the main intuition, and the robustness of the welfare results, as well as the fragility of the conventional wisdom about price quality, are discussed by incorporating dynamics and endogenizing information acquisition.

This dissertation examined whether or not microcredit, the provision of small loans to people usually excluded from mainstream financial institutions, demonstrably improved health for typical borrowers in Indonesia. The underlying idea behind microcredit is that loans will increase borrowers’ income and lead to positive changes in their lives, including their health. However, microcredit may actually be harmful to borrowers’ health because of stress associated with repayment obligations, extra working hours needed to start a business and tensions caused by shifting power dynamics in the household. Moreover, for some borrowers, a loan may facilitate increased spending on so-called temptation goods that are damaging to health, such as tobacco and processed foods. Previous research has not adequately explored these competing positive and negative pathways linking microcredit and health. The project consisted of three parts: a systematic review and two empirical papers. The systematic review synthesized the scientific literature related to individual microcredit loans, health-related temptation spending, psychological stress and self-reported health outcomes in adults. The empirical papers estimated the causal effect of microcredit on household expenditures on tobacco and processed foods, and individual psychological distress and self-rated health. Both empirical papers used data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey, a longitudinal study that followed more than 7,000 households over 21 years. After adjusting for confounding, people living in borrowing households had levels of psychological distress and self-rated health that were similar to people living in non-borrowing households. These predominantly null findings were relatively robust across multiple models. Microcredit households did spend substantially more money on tobacco than non-borrowers. This difference was driven by households with male borrowers. Still, tobacco spending ultimately did not affect health outcomes. Based on empirical evidence from this dissertation along with findings from other studies, policymakers and practitioners should recalibrate their high expectations of microcredit as a socially transformative intervention. At the same time, fears about the unintended health consequences of microcredit may have been exaggerated. Reliance on longitudinal data generated insights into microcredit and health that could not be established from randomized controlled trials.

Keung Kam-Yin. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-80). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Overview --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Income growth and pollution --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2 --- Environmental regulations and comparative advantage --- p.6 / Chapter 2.3 --- Welfare implications : Optimal policy in a second-best world --- p.9 / Chapter 2.4 --- Unemployment and the Environment --- p.11 / Chapter 2.5 --- Labor Union and International Trade --- p.12 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- Tariffs and the Environment --- p.14 / Chapter 3.1 --- The model --- p.14 / Chapter 3.2 --- Resource Allocation -The effects of import tariffs --- p.19 / Chapter 3.3 --- National welfare --- p.23 / Chapter 3.4 --- Trade Liberalization --- p.26 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Tariffs，Unemployment and the Environment --- p.28 / Chapter 4.1 --- The model --- p.30 / Chapter 4.2 --- Resource Allocation - The effects of import tariffs --- p.33 / Chapter 4.3 --- National Welfare --- p.37 / Chapter 4.4 --- Trade Liberalization --- p.40 / Chapter Chapter 5 --- "Tariffs, Labor Unions and the Environment" --- p.42 / Chapter 5.1 --- The model --- p.43 / Chapter 5.2 --- Resource Allocation - The effects of import tariffs --- p.48 / Chapter 5.3 --- National Welfare --- p.52 / Chapter 5.4 --- Trade Liberalization --- p.54 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Concluding Remarks --- p.57 / Appendix I --- p.60 / Appendix II --- p.64 / Appendix III --- p.67 / References --- p.72

Yam Yin Kat. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 46-49). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Data --- p.4 / Chapter 3 --- Gender and Birth Order of Children --- p.7 / Chapter 3.1 --- Hypothesis Development --- p.7 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Gender Discrimination --- p.7 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Birth Order --- p.12 / Chapter 3.2 --- Results on Gender Bias --- p.14 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Overall Results --- p.15 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Gender Bias in Rural versus Urban Area --- p.18 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Household Characteristics and Gender Bias --- p.19 / Chapter 3.3 --- Birth Order Effect --- p.22 / Chapter 4 --- Number of Children --- p.25 / Chapter 4.1 --- Hypothesis and Empirical Strategy --- p.25 / Chapter 4.2 --- Results --- p.30 / Chapter 5 --- Conclusion --- p.33 / Tables --- p.35 / References --- p.46

Yeung Yun Sing Samson. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 64-67). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Background --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Applicability of Weather Derivative in Hong Kong: The Recre- ation Industry --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Types of Weather Risk --- p.9 / Chapter 3 --- Literature Review --- p.12 / Chapter 4 --- Basic Model --- p.17 / Chapter 4.1 --- Notations --- p.18 / Chapter 4.2 --- Assumptions --- p.21 / Chapter 4.3 --- The Profit Model --- p.22 / Chapter 5 --- Fundamental Analysis --- p.25 / Chapter 5.1 --- Sales Profit Analysis --- p.25 / Chapter 5.2 --- Option Analysis --- p.27 / Chapter 5.3 --- Profit Function Reformulation --- p.30 / Chapter 6 --- Objectivel: Lexicographic Optimization --- p.35 / Chapter 6.1 --- Equivalence between Lexicographic Optimization and Expected Utility Maximization --- p.38 / Chapter 6.2 --- Minimizing the Conditional Profit Variance given Q* --- p.39 / Chapter 6.3 --- Numerical Examples --- p.42 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Convexity of conditional profit variance --- p.42 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Correlation between Q* & N* --- p.47 / Chapter 7 --- Objective2: Mean-Variance Optimization --- p.52 / Chapter 7.1 --- Numerical Examples --- p.59 / Chapter 8 --- Conclusion and Future Work --- p.61 / Bibliography --- p.64 / Chapter A --- Weather Option Pricing --- p.68 / Chapter B --- Infeasibility of Perfect Hedge --- p.70

Lundberg et al. (2003)主張的婚姻談判理論指出退休家庭消費驟降現象是由於夫妻間的相對談判能力在丈夫退休後出現變化而造成。而且該下跌的幅度取決於二人年齡的差異。本論文考慮到 Aguiar and Hurst (2005)的評論消費應該被視為支出和時間的輸出，嘗試修改 Lundberg et al. (2003)的婚姻談判模型，並從食物攝取量的角度重新探討它在退休消費決策中所扮演的角色。我利用美國全國食品調查的食品消費支出和攝取量數據，結果發現儘管退休已婚夫婦的消費支出有下降跡象，但無論是已婚還是單身家庭均沒有減少消費的數量或降低消費的品質。此外，我發現並無任何證據顯示在已婚家庭組別中，夫婦間年齡差距較大的家庭會傾向於丈夫退休後削減更多消費或支出。這些結果與理論預期不符合。因此，認為婚姻談判理論能充分解釋已婚家庭退休消費行為的推斷還是言之過早。 / The Marital Bargaining Theory proposed by Lundberg et al. (2003) suggests that a discontinuity in consumption expenditure at retirement is attributable to the change in the relative bargaining power of husbands and wives upon the husband's retirement, and that the extent of such a decline depends upon age differences in couples. This thesis responds to Aguiar and Hurst (2005)'s critique that consumption should be regarded as an outcome of market expenses and time. With this taken into consideration, I attempt to rewrite the marital bargaining model and reexamine its role in the retirement-consumption decision empirically from the perspective of food intake. By exploiting data on food expenditures and intake from U.S nationwide food surveys, I show that despite a drop in expenditures for married couples, neither married nor single households experience a decline in consumption associated with retirement in terms of food quantity and quality. Also, I find no evidence that married couples with big age gaps suffer from a larger decline in either expenditures or consumption relative to those who are closer in age. These results are inconsistent with a modified model of marital bargaining. It is thus premature to conclude that the Marital Bargaining Theory plays an important role in explaining the retirement-consumption behavior of married couples. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Wong, Lok Sze. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 81-83). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.ii / 摘要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.4 / Chapter 3. --- Data --- p.13 / Chapter 3.1 --- Survey Description --- p.13 / Chapter 3.2 --- Sample Selection --- p.18 / Chapter 3.3 --- Summary Statistics --- p.20 / Chapter 4. --- Change in Expenditure and Time use at Retirement --- p.21 / Chapter 5. --- Modified Model of Marital Bargaining --- p.26 / Chapter 6. --- Methodology for Consumption Analysis --- p.32 / Chapter 7. --- Comparison of the CSFII and NHANES Estimates --- p.37 / Chapter 8. --- Retirement-Consumption Behaviors across Married Couples --- p.40 / Chapter 9. --- Discussion and Implication --- p.47 / Chapter 10. --- Conclusion --- p.50 / Chapter Figure 1: --- Retirement Rates by Age in the CSFII --- p.52 / Chapter Table 1: --- Demographic Statistics of Male Household Heads Aged Between 57 and 71 in the CSFII and NHANES by Marital Status --- p.53 / Chapter Table 2: --- Descriptive Statistics of Self-Reported Health Status and Specific Health Conditions of Male Household Heads Aged Between 57 and 71 in the CSFII and NHANES by Marital Status --- p.54 / Chapter Table 3: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Log Food Expenditure and Shopping Frequency Upon Retirement by Marital Status --- p.55 / Chapter Table 4: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Log Food Expenditure and Shopping Frequency Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age --- p.56 / Chapter Table 5: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Log Food Expenditure and Shopping Frequency Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Three Groups) --- p.57 / Chapter Table 6: --- Comparison of Predictions Between Standard and Modified Marital Bargaining Models --- p.58 / Chapter Table 7: --- Comparison of Regression Results for Average Population Between the CSFII and NHANES (Nutritional Compositions) --- p.59 / Chapter Table 8: --- Comparison of Regression Results for Average Population Between the CSFII and NHANES (Propensity to Consume Food Categories) --- p.60 / Chapter Table 9: --- Comparison of Regression Results for Average Population Between the CSFII and NHANES (Propensity to Eat Away from Home) --- p.61 / Chapter Table 10: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Nutritional Compositions Upon Retirement by Marital Status --- p.62 / Chapter Table 11: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Consume Food Categories Upon Retirement by Marital Status --- p.63 / Chapter Table 12: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Eat Away from Home Upon Retirement by Marital Status --- p.64 / Chapter Table 13: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Nutritional Compositions Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Three Groups) --- p.65 / Chapter Table 14: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Consume Food Categories Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Three Groups) --- p.66 / Chapter Table 15: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Eat Away from Home Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Three Groups) --- p.67 / Chapter Table 16: --- Comparison of Empirical Results and Predictions of Two Models, With and Without Change in Bargaining Power Within Marriage, for Married Couple Households --- p.68 / Chapter Appendix Table 1: --- The Median Annual Household Incomes in the 1999-2008 CPS March Supplement and the Corresponding Income Ranges in the NHANES --- p.69 / Chapter Appendix Table 2: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Nutritional Compositions Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Non-Household Head) --- p.70 / Chapter Appendix Table 3: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Consume Food Categories Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Non-Household Head) --- p.71 / Chapter Appendix Table 4: --- Instrumental Variable Regression of Changes in Propensity to Eat Away from Home Upon Retirement for Married Couples by Difference in Age (Non-Household Head) --- p.72 / Chapter Appendix: --- Proof 1 --- p.73 / Chapter Appendix: --- Proof 2 --- p.76 / References --- p.81

Kong, Kwok Ho. / "August 2011." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-68). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.ii / 摘要 --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- The Retirement-Consumption Puzzle --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2 --- Food Expenditure and Food Consumption --- p.7 / Chapter 2.3 --- Heterogeneous Impact of Retirement on Consumption Expenditure --- p.7 / Chapter 3. --- Data Sources and Description --- p.10 / Chapter 3.1 --- Surveys --- p.10 / Chapter 3.2 --- Sample --- p.12 / Chapter 4. --- Methodology --- p.16 / Chapter 5. --- "Comparison of the NHAPS, ATUS, and ASEC Estimates" --- p.18 / Chapter 6. --- Empirical Results-Demographic Characteristics --- p.21 / Chapter 6.1 --- Male and Female Householders --- p.23 / Chapter 6.2 --- Marital Status --- p.25 / Chapter 6.3 --- Education --- p.27 / Chapter 7. --- Empirical Results-Financial Characteristics --- p.29 / Chapter 7.1 --- Housing Ownership --- p.30 / Chapter 7.2 --- Interest and Dividend Income --- p.32 / Chapter 8. --- Empirical Results-Dependency Status --- p.35 / Chapter 9. --- Potential Bias of Using Age as an Insturment for Retirement --- p.38 / Chapter 10. --- Robustness Checking --- p.40 / Chapter 10.1 --- Estimation with Restricted Samples --- p.40 / Chapter 10.2 --- Ordinary Least Square (OLS) Estimation --- p.41 / Chapter 11. --- Conclusions --- p.43 / Chapter Figure 1 --- Level Changes of Time Spent on Food Production for Household Members by Three-year Ranges --- p.46 / Chapter Figure 2 --- Percentage Change of Time Spent on Food Production for Household Members by Three-year Ranges --- p.47 / Chapter Table 1 --- "Descriptive Statistics of Non-retired and Retired Individuals in NHAPS, ATUS, and ATUS-ASEC" --- p.48 / Chapter Table 2 --- Descriptive Statistics of Time Spent on Home Food Production (in minutes per day) of Non-retired and Retired Households --- p.49 / Chapter Table 3 --- Comparison of Regression Result between the Estimation of Aguiar and Hurst (2005) and the Author's Estimation --- p.50 / Chapter Table 4 --- Descriptive Statistics of ATUS Non-retired and Retired Individuals by Gender --- p.51 / Chapter Table 5 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Gender --- p.52 / Chapter Table 6 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Female Householders by Marital Status --- p.53 / Chapter Table 7 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Male Householders by Marital Status --- p.54 / Chapter Table 8 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Education Attainment --- p.55 / Chapter Table 9 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Housing Ownership --- p.56 / Chapter Table 10 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Interest Income and Dividend Income during the Survey Year --- p.57 / Chapter Table 11 --- 2SLS Estimates of ATUS-ASEC Householders by Dependency Status during the Survey Year --- p.58 / Chapter Table 12 --- Comparison of Regression Results under Full Samples and Restricted Samples --- p.59 / Chapter Table 13 --- Comparison of Regression Results between the Use of 2SLS and OLS Methods --- p.60 / Chapter Appendix: --- Data --- p.61 / Chapter Appendix Table 1 --- Time Spent on Home Food Production (in Minutes per Day) of Householders by Marital Status --- p.62 / Chapter Appendix Table 2 --- Time Spent on Home Food Production (in Minutes per Day) of Householders by Education Attainment --- p.63 / Chapter Appendix Table 3 --- Time Spent on Home Food Production (in Minutes per Day) of Householders by Housing Ownership and the Sum of Interest Income and Dividend Income --- p.64 / Chapter Appendix Table 4 --- Housing Ownership and Education Attainment of Individuals in 2003-2009 ATUS-ASEC --- p.65 / Chapter Appendix Table 5 --- Time Spent on Home Food Production (in Minutes per Day) of Householders by Dependency Status --- p.66 / References --- p.67

黃玉. / Thesis (doctoral)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-208). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Huang Yu.