This thesis consists of three self-contained chapters on issues relating to the empirics of poverty and household analysis in Africa. The first analyses poverty at the country level, highlighting the diversity of experience in poverty reduction performance over the last few decades and assessing its causes. The other two studies are more methodological in their content, exploring how poverty and related issues can be analysed at the household level using existing survey data that pose difficulties as they do not track the same set of households over time. Chapter 2 highlights the fact that although growth has improved substantially in most African countries in recent years, poverty across the continent has fallen very little in the aggregate. Poverty reduction performance has varied across countries: there are apparently ‘two Africas’, one with an ability to reduce poverty and one without. The main argument is that one reason for this difference is rooted in colonial times. Countries with strong smallholder cash crop sectors emerged into independence with broad-based labour-intensive economies supporting a more equitable income distribution conducive to inclusive growth and poverty reduction compared to initially more inequitable mineral resource and large farm based economies. This did not necessarily determine the post-colonial path: many peasant export economies achieved no poverty reduction (often because of little growth), and some mine/plantation economies did achieve poverty reduction. The key reasons for this evolution lie in the motivation and ability of African elites to form pro-poor coalitions, which in some cases were then able to implement policies supporting a pro-poor pattern of growth. Chapter 3 focuses on pseudo-panel estimation and how it enables the estimation of panel models when only repeated cross-sections rather than panel data are available. It involves the grouping of individual into cohorts and using the cohort means as if they are observations in a genuine panel. The usual assertion is that as long as there are enough individuals within cohorts so that the cohort sample means are a good approximation of the cohort population means then pseudo-panel estimates are consistent, otherwise they may suffer from measurement error bias. We show that there can be substantial bias arising from the grouping process itself due to the loss of variation and heterogeneity as one moves from the individual to the cohort level. Thus we find many of the common methods used for grouping into cohorts produces inconsistent estimates. We develop some measures for assessing whether the cohort level data contains sufficient variation for pseudo-panel estimates to be consistent, focusing on the variation across cohort means, over time and within cohort groups. We then test the measures empirically and with Monte Carlo simulations, providing useful thresholds that can be used to accept or reject the cohort construction method. Chapter 4 assesses four different estimation methods of binary response models with individual effects where the data is a time-series of independent cross-sections. We compare Deaton’s (1985) linear fixed effects estimator, which is most often used in applied work, to three non-linear estimators. The first is a simplified version of Collado’s (1998) Minimum Distance estimator. The other two are based on the fractional response estimators developed by Wooldridge and Papke (2008) which, unlike Collado’s estimator, can be used for dynamic models as well. Results from Monte Carlo simulations and from an empirical application indicate the linear estimator is just as good as the other non-linear estimators and is generally more robust to problems arising from the process of creating the pseudo-panel.

Given the growing world population and income in emerging economies, increased demand for food and feed crops for the production of bio-fuels, and greater frequency and intensity of weather-related disasters in different parts of the world due to climate change, global food prices are expected to increase. Food importing developing countries are vulnerable to these price increases and associated price volatility as poor households would be the most severely affected. While there are extensive empirical studies on the effect of food price increases and volatility on household welfare in developed and developing countries, little is known about African countries. This thesis contributes to the literature on Africa, specifically Ghana using three waves of the Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) to measure the effect of food price increases on household welfare between 1991 and 2013 and addressing the effect of price volatility with a measure of households’ willingness to pay for price stability. A number of contributions are made in this thesis. First, an application of both a parametric and non-parametric analysis to the GLSS shows that budget share equations require including a higher expenditure term to appropriately explain consumer behaviour; the non-linear Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System expenditure model is the best fit for the GLSS data. Second, an analysis of the consumption patterns of cereal and cereal products shows variation in consumption patterns across time and different groups of households. For example, bread is considered a necessity while maize was a luxury in 1991/92 and 1998/99 but a necessity in 2012/13, showing a case of where a commodity is a luxury at some point and a necessity at another time. Commodity groups such as root, tubers & plantain, meat, fish and oil & fat products are considered luxuries while bread & cereals are considered necessities. Third, welfare effects calculated for three periods of price changes show there are differences in magnitude for each period, and in all periods a higher proportion of poorer household food expenditure is needed to compensate for observed price increases than for non-poor households. However, within poorer households, we find that rural poor households suffered more from price increases than urban poor households. There are also significant regional differences in welfare effects across periods, with households in the Savannah zone suffering more from observed price changes in all periods. Finally, while the average rural household is a net producer of maize and millet but a net purchaser of rice, rural households are more price risk averse with respect to the price of rice. If substitution between the prices of maize, rice and millet are ignored, 13 per cent of income of the average rural household is required to stabilise prices of all three commodities. However, if substitution is allowed for, the average rural household will be willing to pay 9 per cent of income to stabilise the price of all three commodities at the same time. This suggests that ignoring substitution between prices lead to overestimation of household Willingness-To-Pay (WTP) to stabilise prices of maize, rice and millet in Ghana.

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This thesis comprises three self-contained essays on topics surrounding economic growth and macroeconomic performance in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The first two address aspects of measurement error in macroeconomic data from SSA: the first essay (Chapter 2) explores the potential of nighttime luminosity as a means of improving GDP estimates, the second (Chapter 3) assesses the potential impact of changes in the data on empirical results from time series analysis. The third essay (Chapter 4) investigates exchange rate dynamics in Zambia, and how these pass through to consumer prices. The first essay (Chapter 2) explores heterogeneity in the nexus between nighttime light emissions and economic activity, a relationship that is increasingly exploited with the aim of reducing measurement error in growth estimates of countries where the data is considered weak. I show that the elasticity between nighttime lights and economic activity varies substantially across countries, and that this variation has a systematic component which could have implications for empirical results. Using the elastic net method in order to isolate the relevant factors, I find that 55% of the variation can be explained by observable factors. When tracing economic growth in Africa since 1992 using luminosity and accounting for the explained share of parameter heterogeneity, I find no evidence of an 'African Growth Miracle' as described by, e.g., Young (2012). However, I do find evidence that countries that recently revised their GDP figures (like Nigeria and Ghana) had a tendency to report inflated growth rates for recent years. This is consistent with Jerven (2014)'s hypothesis of purely 'statistical growth'. The second essay (Chapter 3) explores the inconsistencies across different versions and sources of national accounts data (three versions of the Penn World Table and the World Development Indicators), and their impact on macroeconomic inference from time series analysis. I use the statistical framework developed by Juselius et al. (2014) and assess the robustness of their conclusions regarding the long-run impact of foreign aid on economic growth in 36 SSA countries that are generally considered to have low statistical capacity, and where sources on macroeconomic variables sometimes disagree strongly. The results of this exercise are mixed: When I apply the Cointegrated VAR models precisely as developed by JMT to the new datasets, results remain robust for about two thirds of the countries. Once I re-specify the time series models based on the respective data (as different data will sometimes imply different lag lengths, cointegration ranks, etc.), using the same statistical methodology as JMT, this often leads to more substantial changes in the conclusions. The third essay (Chapter 4) investigates the dynamics between the exchange rate and consumer prices in a resource-rich setting in a case study of Zambia. Using a combination of short-run sign- and zero-restrictions, I identify relevant global and domestic shocks in a structural VAR (SVAR). The results suggest that the pass-through of the exchange rate to consumer prices (ERPT) depends greatly on the shock that originally caused the exchange rate to fluctuate. While, for instance, the price of copper is the most important driver of the exchange rate, the fluctuations caused by it tend to affect prices only moderately (an ERPT of ca. 7%). On the other hand, exchange rate fluctuations caused by monetary shocks come with a much higher pass-through of up to 25%.

The thesis examines the case of Barrow-in-Furness through the period of the First World War. As a town dominated by one of the UK’s most important armaments firms, Vickers, Barrow experienced the full force of industrial mobilisation and government intervention. In analysing the responses to these events, the thesis provides insights into their impact on a town and population dependent on industries stimulated by war. Barrow had special problems arising from its geographical isolation and large munitions population. Vickers, the work force and the town at large were used to negotiating their own difficulties, but these were severely tested by the impact of war. Industrial relations in a heavily unionised but strategically important town were complicated by the different positions of Vickers, unions, shop stewards, rival government agencies, and the role of women, yet ultimately all parties found ways of working together. The knock-on effects of the war on industry were extensive and far reaching. The life of the town was intimately bound up with the war industry and the changes in war requirements ultimately affected its population through housing, health and welfare and the need for utilities and transport. Addressing these difficulties posed some of the greatest problems. Political implications of wartime in a working-class town led to a split in the Labour Party and ultimately the return of a Tory in 1919. While historians have considered how the nation met the demands of the war, a focus on the regionality of the home front highlights more precisely the impact on specific places and how the war effort was sustained in practice. The experience of the town of Barrow throughout the period of the First World War is therefore invaluable for demonstrating the complexity and inter-relatedness of how the war affected people, industry and infrastructure on the home front.

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At independence the emerging African elite was dominated by employees of the state. Many academics have since speculated that this over-reliance on public employment contributed to the continent’s poor economic performance, as resources extracted from society were captured by a rent-seeking public sector class. Because this elite was directly beholden to the state, it also lacked the independence needed to hold the political class to task. Was this diagnosis accurate and has the state’s role as a creator of the elite persisted? This dissertation explores how three East African governments –those of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda - have used their powers as the single largest employer in their respective countries to influence the structure of society. Using quantitative evidence, it traces how public employment and pay evolved between the 1960s and the present. It examines the effects of these changes on the economic standing of public sector employees and the educational, regional and ethnic backgrounds of the people who came to work for the state. This long-run perspective shows that the public services in all three countries have changed a great deal over the past half-century and suggests that public sector salaries have declined in importance for the region’s educational and income elites. It also reveals that public sector jobs have been more evenly distributed - on a regional, ethnic and gender basis - than is sometimes presumed. The thesis relates these findings to a rich political economy literature on public employment, social stratification and the development of the African postcolonial state.

Steam and screw propeller took a long time to displace sail in coastal bulk trades: 60 years compared with the 20 years needed for steam and the paddle to dominate coastal liner trades. As this thesis confirms, conquering the bulk trades was a much more difficult undertaking. To offset far greater capital and running costs, the developer of the steam bulk carrier could offer only that his steamer, largely independent of weather and tide, would carry significantly more cargo in a given period than a sailing vessel. This thesis demonstrates how, to fulfil this promise, many obstacles had to be overcome, including the high cost of iron hulls and steam engines, the inefficiency of early steam engines and boilers, the water ballast problem, slowness of discharge, archaic port practices, and physical constraints of ports and waterways. The findings suggest that, in the rise of the steam bulk carrier, the role of the railways should be diminished, and that of the gas industry accentuated. The impact of rail competition on the London collier trade was no more than a pinprick when the first screw collier was building, and the coal market's subsequent growth was so strong that the steady increase in rail-hauled coal barely dented the tonnage delivered by sea from the north east. On the other hand, without the gas industry's demand for large, regular and guaranteed deliveries, the coal interests would probably not have encouraged the development of the screw collier when they did.

The aim of this thesis is to apply computer technology, specifically data management systems, (commonly referred to as computer databases) to the study of the social history of the Royal Navy of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815). The muster, and to a lesser extent, pay and log books of three British Royal Navy frigates of the period HMS Trent, Amazon and Glenmore have been transcribed onto a series of Microsoft Access databases. The databases have then been interrogated in order to produce statistical information that has been applied to specific questions relating to the social history of the Royal Navy of the period. The emphasis of the thesis is the men of the lower deck although one chapter looks specifically at commissioned officer development. The major questions addressed revolve around the duties of the ships and men (Chapter 2)recruitment of men to the three ships (Chapter 3), the use of child labour (Chapter 4), the recruitment and development of volunteers new to the sea (Chapter 5)and the development and career prospects of midshipmen. The thesis provides a unique view of the men and boys who served on board Royal Navy vessels of the period that is not reliant on controversial memoirs but concentrates on exploiting primary sources recorded on a day-to-day basis. The findings demonstrate that the use of computer databases is a powerful weapon in the naval historian's armoury and have made a significant contribution towards answering some important social questions regarding the lower deck of Nelson's navy.

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