The first essay studies how early health shocks affect the child's human capital formation. We first formulate a theoretical model to understand how early health shocks affect child outcomes through parental responses. We nest a dynamic model of human capability formation into a standard intrahousehold resource allocation framework. By introducing the multidimensionality of child endowments, we allow parents to compensate and reinforce along different dimensions. We then test our main empirical predictions using a Chinese child twins survey, which contains detailed information on child- and parent-specific expenditures. We can differentiate between investments in money and investments in time. On the one hand, we find evidence of compensating investment in child health but of reinforcing investment in education. On the other hand, we find no change in the time spent with the child. We confirm that an early health insult negatively affects the child under several different domains, ranging from later health, to cognition, and then to personality. Our findings suggest caution in interpreting reduced-form estimates of the effects of early-life shocks. In the presence of asymmetric parental responses under different dimensions of the child's human capital, they cannot even be unambiguously interpreted as upper or lower bounds of the biological effects. / The second essay empirically estimates the effects of education on two dimensions of preference -- decision making under risk and uncertainty and decision making involving time. We conduct a number of incentivized choice experiments on Chinese adult twins to measure preference, and use a within-twin-pair fixed-effects estimator to sweep out unobservable family background effects. The estimation results show that a higher level of education tends to reduce the degree of risk aversion toward moderate prospects, moderate hazards, and longshot prospects. In terms of decision making anomalies under risk and uncertainty, university educated subjects exhibit significantly more Allais-type behavior compared to pre-high school subjects, while high school educated subjects also exhibit more ambiguity aversion as well as familiarity bias relative to pre-high school subjects. For decision making involving time, a higher level of education tends to reduce the degree of impatience, hyperbolic discounting, dread, and hopefulness. The experimental evidences suggest that people with a higher level of education tends to exhibit more "biased" preference in risk attitude and less "biased" preference regarding time. / This thesis consists of two essays on family behavior and human capital. / essay 1. Early health shocks, parental responses, and child outcome -- essay 2. Education and preferences: experimental evidences from Chinese adult twins. / Yi, Junjian. / Adviser: Junsen Zhang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-06, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 37-41; 82-88). / 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 Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

There have been numerous twin-based studies in the past that control for the unobservable variables in the analyses. However, these past studies have often yielded contradictory results with no consensus on some important issues and no definite conclusions. The objective of the present study is an attempt to explain some of the differences in the past studies, and to re-examine some issues on returns to education, the importance of genetic and environmental factors, and the significance of measurement errors. / This study applies four twin-based models to three available US twin data. The empirical results in this study show that (1) while some differences in existing studies are caused by different data used, other differences are due to different models used; (2) the "true" returns to schooling are mostly less than the "overall" returns to schooling, indicating a positive omitted variable bias; (3) the omitted variables are a significant portion, viz. approximately 40%, of the "overall" returns to schooling; (4) these omitted variables, when divided into the genetic and environmental factors, generally indicate that environmental factors have a stronger effect than genetic factors; (5) models with two schooling variables are more prone to measurement error, biasing the estimates more significantly; (6) the measurement error problem in the schooling variable biases the estimates and the magnitude of the bias depends on the data used; and (7) results for males and females are different. / Yung Chor-Wing Linda. / "May 2000." / Adviser: Junsen Zhang. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 61-08, Section: A, page: 3293. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 202-205). / 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. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

This thesis is comprised of three essays that examine three contemporary themes in UK higher education that have emerged, particularly over the past two decades, within an expanding higher education sector. The first essay focuses on the issue of Vice Chancellor (VC) pay, which has risen considerably in real terms since the early 1990s. Vice Chancellors are among the highest paid public sector CEOs and the level and annual increase in pay generates an annual furore in the popular media and from teaching and lecturers' unions. Specifically, we investigate whether VC pay awards are justified, given that VCs now require greater managerial skills than in the past due to the complexity and the size of the institutions they now manage. We find that VC pay is related to success in furthering university expansion and is associated with success in widening participation in accordance with current government policy, which suggests that there may be scope in introducing some performance element in VC pay determination. There is also evidence that internal pay structure and external comparable pay are important in determining VC pay. The second essay is set against the backdrop of rising student debt and examines student debt expectation. We offer a novel contribution to the limited literature that exists on this issue. We find that expected debt is related to student demographic and socio-economic characteristics, future earnings expectations, student time preference and risk taking behaviour. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the current system of student financial support has little effect on debt expectations and may compromise HE participation particularly amongst students in the lower socio-economic groups. The final essay investigates the upward drift in the percentage share of ‘good' degree classifications in UK higher education, which increased considerably since the mid- 2000s and coincides with a rise in the maximum limit universities are allowed to charge potential students for tuition. We find evidence of grade inflation in UK higher education since the mid-2000s which coincides with the sharp increase in fees students were obliged to pay. Thus, degree classifications may lose their worth as signals of graduate ability and the current system of degree classification may need some revision if correct signals of graduate ability and effort are to be sent to interested parties.

Earthquake impacts are widely studied across numerous disciplines. However, no systematic approach to quantify the "size" of an earthquake for impact research exists. This work provides the first comprehensive discussion and empirical study on how to measure the natural hazard of an earthquake for application in the social sciences. A data set consisting of all relevant global ground shaking from 1973 to 2015 combined with population exposure data and impact data is constructed based on 14,608 ShakeMaps. The empirical work shows that magnitude is not a good proxy for shaking and that measures of total earthquake size based on ground motion parameters perform better in explaining impacts than magnitude. In particular peak ground acceleration (PGA) performs well and is applied for two separate impact analyses. First, the relationship between earthquake ground shaking and public health related variables in California is investigated. Second, the global impact of earthquake ground shaking on long-run economic growth is studied. Furthermore, this work introduces the concept of a shaking center as well as a shaking centroid and provides the first global statistics on the area exposed to strong ground shaking for a given earthquake.

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Xiao, Yao. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 32-33). / Abstract also in Chinese. / Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.Page 5 / Chapter 2. --- Literature Review --- p.Page 8 / Chapter 3. --- Model --- p.Page 12 / Chapter 4. --- Data --- p.Page 15 / Chapter 5. --- Regression results and comparisons --- p.Page 19 / Chapter 6. --- Sub-group tests --- p.Page 26 / Chapter 7. --- Conclusion --- p.Page 30 / Chapter 8. --- References --- p.Page 32 / Chapter 9. --- Appendix --- p.Page 34

Cheung, Yang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-89). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.iv / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Related Works --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1 --- Pricing Mechanisms --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- Current Situation --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- Proposed Pricing Mechanisms --- p.6 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- Congestion Pricing --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1.4 --- Bandwidth Allocation Mechanism --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2 --- Revenue Distribution Mechanisms --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Current Situation --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Novel Revenue Distribution Mechanisms --- p.13 / Chapter 3 --- Problems in Revenue Collecting Stage --- p.16 / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.17 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Desirable Characteristics of Internet Pricing Mechanism --- p.19 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Existing Solution --- p.21 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Applying Insurance into Internet Pricing --- p.22 / Chapter 3.2 --- The Internet Pricing Model --- p.25 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- System Model --- p.25 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Decisions Time Scales --- p.27 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- Micro Time Scale Pricing --- p.28 / Chapter 3.2.4 --- Macro Time Scale Pricing --- p.29 / Chapter 3.3 --- Actuarially Fair Coinsurance Function --- p.30 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- The Actuarially Fair Coinsurance Function --- p.32 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Properties of the Actuarially Fair Coinsurance Function --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- How Much Insurance Should a User Buy? --- p.35 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Numerical Examples --- p.37 / Chapter 3.4 --- Premium Coinsurance Function --- p.40 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Problems of Allowing Pull Insurance --- p.41 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- The Premium Coinsurance Function --- p.43 / Chapter 3.4.3 --- Properties of the premium coinsurance function --- p.44 / Chapter 3.4.4 --- Numerical Example --- p.46 / Chapter 4 --- Problems in Revenue Distributing Stage --- p.48 / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.50 / Chapter 4.2 --- System Models --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- Topology Model --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Traffic Model --- p.54 / Chapter 4.3 --- Settlement Model and Definition of Fair Price --- p.55 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Bilateral Settlement --- p.55 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Shapley Settlement --- p.58 / Chapter 4.4 --- Fair Price Achieving the Shapley Value: The Symmetric Case --- p.61 / Chapter 4.5 --- Properties of the Fair Prices in the Symmetric Case --- p.65 / Chapter 4.5.1 --- Sensitivity to traffic pattern α --- p.65 / Chapter 4.5.2 --- Sensitivity to network topology parame- ters p and d --- p.67 / Chapter 4.6 --- Fair Price Achieving the Shapley Value: The Asym- metric Case --- p.70 / Chapter 4.7 --- Distributed and Local Approximation of the Fair Price --- p.71 / Chapter 5 --- Conclusions --- p.74 / Chapter A --- Mathematical Proofs --- p.77 / Chapter A.l --- Mathematical Proof for Chapter 3 --- p.77 / Chapter A.1.1 --- Proof of Theorem 3.3.2 --- p.77 / Chapter A.1.2 --- Proof of Proposition 3.3.5 --- p.77 / Chapter A.1.3 --- Proof of Proposition 3.3.6 --- p.78 / Chapter A.1.4 --- Proof of Proposition 3.3.7 --- p.78 / Chapter A.1.5 --- Proof of Proposition 3.4.1 --- p.79 / Chapter A.1.6 --- Proof of Proposition 3.4.3 --- p.79 / Chapter A.1.7 --- Proof of Proposition 3.4.5 --- p.80 / Chapter A.2 --- Mathematical Proof for Chapter 4 --- p.81 / Chapter A.2.1 --- Proof of Theorem 4.4.2 --- p.81 / Chapter A.2.2 --- Proof of Theorem (4.6.1) --- p.83 / Chapter A.2.3 --- Terms Description of Equation (4.1) --- p.84 / Bibliography --- p.85

Wong, Tsz Nga. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-77). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- Literature Review --- p.5 / Chapter 3 --- Model --- p.8 / Chapter 3.1 --- Discussion --- p.17 / Chapter 3.2 --- Static Market Equilibrium --- p.18 / Chapter 3.3 --- Comparative Static Studies --- p.29 / Chapter 4 --- Dynamics --- p.37 / Chapter 4.1 --- Steady States --- p.38 / Chapter 4.2 --- Open or Not? --- p.52 / Chapter 4.3 --- Optimal Timing to Foreign Production Function --- p.54 / Chapter 4.4 --- Discussion --- p.57 / Chapter 5 --- World Economy of Production Globalization --- p.61 / Chapter 5.1 --- Technological Progresses in Globalization Environment --- p.66 / Chapter 5.2 --- Discussion --- p.67 / Chapter 6 --- Conclusion --- p.69 / Chapter 7 --- Appendix --- p.70 / Chapter 7.1 --- Al. Derivation of CES Technology from Cobb-Douglas Production Function --- p.70 / Chapter 7.2 --- A2. Proof of Lemma 2 --- p.73

Wong, Pui Hang. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-61). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- Characterizing Illegal Immigrants --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2 --- Job Displacement --- p.5 / Chapter 2 --- Minimum Wage Unemployment --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1 --- The Basic Model --- p.11 / Chapter 2.2 --- The Effect of Illegal Immigration --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- The Solow Model --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- The Decentralized Ramsey Model --- p.21 / Chapter 3 --- Frictional Unemployment --- p.26 / Chapter 3.1 --- The Basic Model --- p.27 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- The Economy with Illegal Migrants --- p.32 / Chapter 3.2 --- Productivity Effect --- p.36 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- Comparative Statics --- p.38 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- Unemployment --- p.40 / Chapter 3.3 --- Exploitation Effect --- p.41 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- A Simulation Example --- p.47 / Chapter 3.4 --- Immigration Controls --- p.48 / Chapter 3.4.1 --- Workplace Sanction --- p.49 / Chapter 3.4.2 --- Deportation & Border Patrol --- p.53 / Chapter 4 --- Conclusion --- p.56

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