Kyoto University (京都大学) / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(農学) / 甲第19045号 / 農博第2123号 / 新制||農||1032 / 31996 / 京都大学大学院農学研究科地域環境科学専攻 / (主査)教授 縄田 栄治, 教授 舟川 晋也, 准教授 赤松 美紀 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当

Economic development is often associated with the adoption of new technologies. The three chapters in this dissertation ask how societies can achieve efficient adoption of these technologies. The first two chapters analyze the dramatic spread of a new communication technology---the mobile phone---in the East African country of Rwanda, using transaction data. Many technologies important for the modern economy are network goods; these goods tend to diffuse inefficiently in the absence of careful policy design. The first chapter introduces a new method to estimate the value of a network good, and to simulate the effects of policies. Economic actors also must decide whether a given technology is worth adopting. The second chapter analyzes how individuals learn about a new technology, by tracing the adoption of a new, cheaper mobile phone plan. The third chapter considers the side effects of new technologies, specifically, how innovation affects dimensions of quality that are not observed by consumers. / Economics

This report examines the book Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits, by Leslie R. Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant as it applies to a particular nonprofit organization: The Miracle Foundation. The Miracle Foundation is a nonprofit based in Austin, Texas, with a mission of empowering orphans, primarily in rural India, to reach their full potential “one child at a time” in an effort to break the cycle of poverty. After an examination of The Miracle Foundation in the context of the Six Practices, the author presents a seventh practice. Additionally, this report discusses shortcomings of the nonprofit and a series of recommendations to ensure The Miracle Foundation is on a course toward being high impact. There is a particular focus on the branding and marketing strategy, as well as the unique position of The Miracle Foundation. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Chinese / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

No description available.

This dissertation comprises three essays analyzing various economic questions relating to open-source software development. The common thread linking these essays is the long-term sustainability of the open-source software development model, which is largely built on unpaid contributions from individual developers scattered across the world. The first essay develops a theoretical analysis of the market for operating systems as two-sided platforms, modeling the effects of competition and compatibility between a proprietary platform developed by a profit-maximizing firm, and an open platform (a public good developed by volunteers). Looking at the impacts on the proprietary platform firm, and application developer firms and users of both platforms, I find that under certain circumstances, a proprietary platform can find it profitable to become compatible with the open platform. However, it is always optimal in terms of social welfare to have compatibility between platforms. The second essay uses a laboratory experiment to examine how these characteristics and levels of motivations that are heterogeneous across individuals interact to result in sustainable, non-zero levels of contribution to open source software. There is a pronounced “leadership effect,” with subjects playing in the first position invariably contributing more frequently than those in the second position, and so on. Heterogeneity preserves the leadership effect, but increases contributions across the board, and eliminates the pattern of declining individual and total group contributions over time frequently observed in public goods experiments. The third essay studies the micro-foundations of open-source software contributions and provides an empirical examination of developer motivations using survey data. If open-source contributions and education are both signals of ability, then their impact on income is likely to be linked. They may be complements if open source contributions reinforce the signal from education by showing that one stands out from the crowd, or they might be substitutes if open-source development replaces expensive education in honing programming skills by offering more immediate feedback. Using an instrumental variables framework to deal with the endogeneity of the education and contribution choices, I find that leading an open-source project and completing college are complementary practices, so that the signaling and reputation-building aspect dominates.

The aim of this study was to examine how the interviewed primary teachers in two schools situated in the Stockholm area understand themselves as teachers in relation to their image of the good teacher. The research questions were:  How do the informants discuss their image of the good teacher?  How do the informants describe their own role as a teacher? A qualitative method, by interviews made with four primary teachers, was used to collect data for the examination. The results from the interviews were analyzed and discussed from the theories and earlier research concerning the role of the teacher and what they describe as the good teacher. The theoretical connection of this study was based on the theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, Bruner, Dewey, Dreikurs, Kounin and Glasser concerning the relationship between the role of the teacher and learning. The conclusions of this study was that the four primary teacher’s image of the good teacher match their description of their own role as a teacher, and so does the most of the earlier research on the subject. Teachers must possess a broad competence and contiously control a lot. I believe that teachers’ personal characteristics in some cases can affect the quality of teaching and the pupils’ learning but I think that it is primarily the teacher’s attitude to their professional role and the teaching quality in itself that contributes to learning. An extrovert or humble teacher is not necessarily a better teacher than those who do not have these characteristics, but who carries on a teaching marked by orderliness and commitment. I do not think there is a definitive link between a teaching that contributes to learning and the personal characteristics that are often associated with the good teacher.

A discussion paper on the future of the UBC Library in the emerging eLibrary environment was prepared by the UBC Library's eLibrary Discussion Paper Working Group.

This thesis explores some theoretical and empirical issues in the voluntary contributions to public good. Chapter I contains a brief motivation and introduction. In chapters II and III, we analyze two non-cooperative methods for either enhancing or mitigating externality-causing activities. Chapter II deals with positive externality in the public good contribution context, and chapter III with negative externality in the pollution abatement context. Chapter IV contains an empirical analysis of charitable donations by the elderly. Chapter II models the so-called ``corporate challenge gift'' used in real world fund-raising, and adopts the concept to voluntary contributions to public goods more generally. We model the process as a sequential game in public good contributions. One of the agents sets a quantity-contingent matching scheme to leverage higher contributions from the other players. Under the assumption that the preferences of agents are public information and the assumption that the scheme setter can commit to the matching plan, we show that the scheme brings efficient levels of total contributions to the public good. Chapter III applies some ideas from a joint work with Professor Robin Boadway and Professor Jean-Fran\c{c}ois Tremblay on ``Commitment and Matching Contributions to Public Goods'' to the issue of reducing negative externality-causing activity. In particular, it adapts both the Guttman-Danziger-Schnytzer type of rate-matching mechanism and the quantity-contingent matching method for public good contributions to the international pollution abatement problem. In a simple two-country model, we find that both matching schemes induce the countries to internalize the negative externality imposed on the other country. However, perhaps due to the lack of enough policy instruments, they cannot equate the marginal costs of abatement across the countries, leaving room for Pareto improvement. This further improvement can be achieved if the two countries also contribute to a conventional public~good. Chapter IV is an empirical exercise on some positive externality-generating activities by the elderly. It attempts to document the charitable giving of money and time by people aged 60 or above in the 2003 PSID data for the United States and analyze the influences of some economic and demographic factors on these activities. Income, wealth, the subjective rating of health status, and years in school are found to have statistically significant impacts. Income and wealth appear to have distinct influences. The tax price of money donation also has a statistically significant effect on money donations. / Thesis (Ph.D, Economics) -- Queen's University, 2007-11-19 01:48:10.777

FACT Around 2.6 billion people worldwide lack access to adequate sanitation and hygiene.  WHY SHOULD WE CARE? Hand washing with soap shows the greatest reduction in diarrhea morbidity (over 40%), and can also reduce respiratory tract infection by about one third.  WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR? Despite the cost effectiveness of hand washing with soap, and the fact that it is a relatively simple behavior, encouraging good hand washing practice remains a challenge. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE? This project aims to spread hand hygiene in rural Kenyan households by engaging local manufacturers. In this project, World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) supported preliminary consumer research and product design work for a new affordable hand washing station.