<p> The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze the impact that two notable school reforms have had on student achievement in Colombia. The dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay lays out the conceptual framework for the dissertation. It describes the education production function that underlies most analyses in the economics of education, and reviews the main evidence on the impact of school resource policies on student outcomes. </p><p> The second essay analyzes the impact of longer school days on student achievement in Colombia, where primary and secondary students attend schools that have either a complete (7-hour) or a half-day (4-hour) schedule. Using test score data from 5^th and 9^th graders in 2002, 2005, and 2009, along with school administrative data, this study identifies the effect of longer school days by implementing a school fixed effects model. The main model compares variation in average test scores across cohorts for schools that switched from a complete schedule to a half schedule and vice versa. I find that among schools that switch schedules between 2002 and 2009, the cohorts exposed to complete schedules have test scores that are about one tenth of a standard deviation higher than cohorts that attended half schedules. The impact of a complete schedule is larger for math test scores than for language test scores, and it is larger for 9^th grade test scores than for 5^th grade test scores. Effects are largest among the poorest schools in the sample, and those in rural areas. The results suggest that lengthening the school day may be an effective policy for increasing student achievement, particularly for the lowest-income students in Colombia and other developing countries. </p><p> The third essay analyzes the impact of the "Escuela Nueva" (EN) model (New School) on student achievement, using test score data from SABER 2002 and 2005, a national standardized test administered to 5^th and 9^th graders in Colombia. EN is an educational model originally designed to improve the effectiveness of rural schools. It is characterized by multigrade classrooms (i.e., one instructor teaches students in various grades in the same classroom), a child-centered curriculum, flexible systems of grading and promotion, intensive teacher training, and parental involvement. To mitigate the concerns about systematic selection of schools into EN that might bias the estimations of the EN impact, this study implements a school fixed effects model that controls for time-invariant characteristics within the school. Results show that among schools that switched models between 2002 and 2005, the cohorts of 5^th grade students exposed to EN have on average 0.135 of a standard deviation higher language test scores than cohorts exposed to other models, while there is no statistically significant impact on switching to EN for 9^th graders. The impact of EN is largest among rural schools and the poorest schools in the sample.</p>

<p> Facing the threat of schism in a globalized church by a proposed ban on bishops in openly gay relationships, a parish rector turned to reconstructive rhetoric to promote a unified identity among members of his congregation. This case study uses a sampling of sermons delivered by the Reverend James Nutter, former rector of Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church, to examine how <i> rhetoric was used to address his congregation, to promote and support collective identity in a potentially divisive atmosphere.</i> The research asks, what was accomplished by the rhetoric and what resources did the congregants themselves bring into play in constructing and maintaining the collective identity of their community? The goal of this research was to find a resonant <i> representative anecdote</i> summing up the parish's organizational identity. The study uses Burke's theory of identification, which involves a systematic clustering of terms that denote <i>association, disassociation,</i> and <i>transcendence.</i> Data sources consist of 37 primary sample documents from sermons, personal interviews, and a focus group analyzed as a Hermeneutic Unit in the Social Scientific Program, ATLAS.ti. The multi-step qualitative research included close reading, content analysis, and coding of <i>umbrella constructs, constructs,</i> and <i>coding themes, </i> which were clustered into semantic maps of <i>coding networks. </i> The study also drew from discourse, church identity, and organizational theories. It contributes to rhetorical theory in the use of parables as analogical extensions that validate the Christian tenet of &ldquo;families&rdquo; gathering at the table despite diversity, and the resistance at Palmer to the actions of global church leaders that were perceived to marginalize gay members of the community. Congregants echoed the cognitive patterns embedded in the parables, connecting them to their own experience and practice of being members of the congregation. When identity work includes a seasoned preacher effectively addressing a competent audience in the pews, parish identity is found to be similar to, but not identical with the denominational identity. The result was an alignment of shared values in Palmer`s representative anecdote, <i> In my Father's mansion, there is room for you.</i></p>

<p> Several researchers have found a link between inequality across groups within a country and armed conflict. However, this research has focused almost exclusively on inequalities in income and political access, forsaking other key societal dimensions such as education. In this article, I examine the link between educational inequality across groups within a country and armed conflict. I use data from the Worldwide Inequality Database on Education to create measures of educational inequality by gender, wealth, and country region for developing countries across the world. I combine these measures with data on income and political inequality in order to better establish the unique association between educational inequality and armed conflict. Overall, I find a positive association between educational inequality and the likelihood that a group within a given country and year will be involved in armed conflict. This association is particularly strong across gender groups and country regions. These findings have implications for conflict prediction, preventative diplomacy efforts, and domestic and international organizations focused on educational and human development.</p>

<p> This paper explores the relationship between a state's use of voter-approved debt and its credit ratings. The variation in credit ratings from 1973 - 2008 across the 50 US states is explained as a function of states' use of voter-approved debt while controlling for confounding variables. The analysis attempts to estimate the effect of issuing voter-approved debt on credit ratings relative to the effect of issuing legislature-approved debt using a panel dataset constructed from three data sources: the National Conference of State Legislature's Ballot Measure Database, the US Census Bureau's Survey of Government Finances and Standard &amp; Poor's credit ratings. While prior literature has focused on the effect of voter approval requirements on measures of state credit health, this paper investigates the use of voter-approved debt by relying on a variable that measures the share of voter-approved debt issued by a state, in a given year and over time. Ordered probit models controlling for state and year fixed effects, as well as state demographics, finances, economic performance and financial institutions are used to explore the relationship between the use of voter-approved debt and a state's credit rating. The paper finds a statistically significant negative relationship between a state's use of voter-approved debt and its credit ratings. The results show that issuing 60% of state debt using voter-approval (the average for states that issue voter-approved debt in a given year) is related to a 0.71 lower state credit rating on a scale from 1-7 (BBB=1, AAA=7).</p>

<p> International technology diffusion reflects global R&amp;D production and collaboration that increasingly accompany other forms of international activity such as trade and foreign direct investment. This thesis studies country-level market flows of disembodied technology or intangibles trade. The main conceptual premise is that operations of MNC subsidiaries have a substantial effect on these market-based flows, consistent with public goods aspects of industrial knowledge and with theories on MNC R&amp;D strategies. Extensive previous country-level work relating FDI and technology flows focuses largely on knowledge spillovers (benefits from involuntary, uncompensated knowledge flows). Further, this study considers simultaneously two types of MNC subsidiaries (foreign owned subsidiaries and overseas subsidiaries of domestic MNCs) to acknowledge the likely role of two-way FDI (measured by MNC activities) in intangibles trade. In turn, the influence of these subsidiary groupings on intangibles trade reflects varied motives of the underlying R&amp;D investments. The predicted effects of MNC operations on intangibles trade result in hypotheses that are tested with published aggregate statistics from the U.S. balance of payments on total U.S. exports and imports in R&amp;D services as the dependent variables. </p><p> Theoretically, the thesis introduces the concept of reverse knowledge transfer from international business research to the study of bilateral intangibles trade. More generally, the thesis contributes to the literature by integrating macro and micro perspectives useful to understand the direction and nature of disembodied technology flows. In particular, the conceptual approach is consistent with macro trade models (two-way trade and two-way FDI from new trade theory), international business research, knowledge-based and transaction costs theories of MNCs (internalization of knowledge production and transfer), and innovation theory (knowledge seeking/exploiting). Consistent with these theoretical considerations, the empirical implementation considers panel countries as both exporters/importers of intangibles and host/home countries of R&amp;D-performing MNC subsidiaries. In turn, estimated equations use panel econometrics to relate observed heterogeneity in the geographic structure of bilateral trade with the geographic distribution of MNC operations for the two types or groupings of MNC subsidiaries. </p><p> The main conceptual premise of this study was supported by the empirical findings. In the aggregate, U.S. MNCs and foreign MNCs with U.S.-located subsidiaries appear to engage in knowledge seeking R&amp;D investments that influence transactions captured in balance of payment statistics. At the same time, the hypotheses regarding the effect of value added operations were not sustained statistically, failing to support knowledge exploiting as conceptualized here. </p><p> International transactions in intangibles in the form of services trade have yet to be integrated in the mainstream S&amp;T policy literature. The analysis of aggregate R&amp;D services trade pursued in this study may complement research on industrial knowledge flows based on other S&amp;T indicators (or levels of aggregation) thus potentially allowing monitoring and analysis of international technology diffusion earlier in the innovation cycle (e.g., before or apart from patenting), and suggests the potential of non-spillover flows as targets of international S&amp;T policy tools, perhaps in conjunction with trade and investment policy frameworks. The study also discusses the need for enhanced and integrated domestic and international statistics on R&amp;D and related intangibles to support future research and the design or modification of policy tools to monitor and facilitate cross-border flows of industrial knowledge.</p>

<p> The transition to late-capitalism in the U.S. has generated extensive societal change. This paper examines the intersection of three of these changes: the transition to a consumer-oriented economic and societal model, the increase of economic insecurity experienced by individuals and households and the heightened emphasis on a short-term orientation in individual decision-making. A review of literature from the fields of Sociology, Economics and Psychology describes differing understandings of how individuals react to the heightened economic insecurity that households experience under late-capitalism. Within mainstream Economics', theoretical and empirical work suggests that individuals respond to insecurity by reducing spending and maximizing long-term financial well-being. However, recent work by theorists such as Zygmunt Bauman and Richard Sennett suggest that the proliferation of risk that occurs under late-capitalism weakens individuals' ability to anticipate future risks and leaves them vulnerable to society's emphasis on short-term thinking. </p><p> In response to these two interpretations, I analyze differences in the effect of household employment insecurity on consumer behavior over time. Part one of the analysis is a descriptive evaluation using six years (1980-2005) of General Social Survey data and compares levels of perceived job insecurity across demographic and occupational groups, while controlling for occupation-specific unemployment levels. Results show that perceived insecurity increased during this time period, regardless of individual characteristics however, members of traditionally 'secure' groups had lower initial levels of perceived insecurity and sharper growth such that, by 2005, levels of job insecurity are not well predicted by demographic or occupational characteristics. </p><p> The second part of this study analyzes data from BLS' Consumer Expenditure Survey. A two-level regression model for repeated cross-sectional data decomposes the effect of occupational characteristics, the unemployment rate and time on households' spending in nine expenditure categories. Models include interaction effects to assess changes in the effect of occupational characteristics over time. Results suggest that occupational characteristics weakened as predictors of spending behavior during this time series, especially in 'long-term oriented' categories (e.g. housing, education). However, the presence of an earner in a high insecurity occupation is significantly associated with increased spending on 'short-term oriented' good and services.</p>

<p> Broadband data networks are becoming increasingly capable of delivering enhanced services and speeds well beyond the capabilities of traditional dial-up. The National Broadband Plan includes guidelines and objectives for broadband development. This study will analyze EAGLE-Net Alliance to determine the extent to which its broadband project is aligned with the relevant goals in the National Broadband Plan. This paper is a case study analyzing a publicly funded broadband project to determine the extent to which it is aligned with the National Broadband Plan. </p><p> This study is important because the success of the National Broadband Plan lies, in part, on periodically checking the progress of its stated goals. The study will attempt to interpret data from the federal grant period to determine the extent to which National Broadband Plan goals are aligned with the objectives and results of the EAGLE-Net Alliance project.</p>

<p> Interest in the commons, a concept that extends back to antiquity, has peaked in recent years as alarming resource depletion and intellectual property restrictions have caused international concern, while the Internet has increasingly linked people globally, creating a robust platform for common action. Generally conceived of as shared resources, communities that create, use, and/or manage them, social protocols that govern their usage, and a sense of mutuality, commons include natural resources and well as created resources such as knowledge and information. This study examined the commons by employing a grounded theory approach that sought to discover a theory regarding the processes underlying this phenomenon. Grounded theory initiates research by asking the question, "What is going on here?" <i>Commoning</i> emerged as the core variable and hence the grounded theory of the commons. Commoning is a complex social and psychological process that commoners engage in when they are establishing and managing commons. Commoning entails supplanting the market paradigm, based upon maximizing self-interest and assigning value based on price, with a paradigm that maximizes communal well-being. Through commoning, commoners gain a sense that they are the protagonists of their own lives. They gain this sense by forming a communal identity, seeing themselves as part of the ecological system, and taking control of resources that they feel the state and market have failed to effectively manage. In commoning, commoners are driven from their inner purpose and authentic self. Living this way resonates to society as a whole, creating a society that reflects more abundance, harmony, peace, social justice, respect for future generations, and sustainability. </p><p> <i>Key words</i>: commons, commoners, commoning, grounded theory, post-capitalism</p>

<p> In just 30 years microfinance has transformed from a credit-based rural development scheme that has claimed to reduce poverty and empower poor women, to a $70 billion financial industry. In the process, the traditional NGO-led model has given way to commercialized institutions, resulting in an increased emphasis on profitmaking. This has also led to confusion in the sector around its mission: is it to alleviate poverty and empower poor women or simply to provide the "unbanked" with access to formal sources of finance? This research considers the main debates in microfinance with regard to its mission and presents empirical evidence on the effectiveness of microfinance. The study is based on the Pakistani microfinance sector, which provides an ideal opportunity for a comparative analysis of two distinct models of microfinance &ndash; the nonprofit microfinance institutions (MFI) and the microfinance banks (MFB). The research compares the depth of outreach, mission, practice, and borrower experiences of MFIs and MFBs, employing a political economy framework. The data includes 140 interviews with policymakers, donors, senior, mid and low-level microfinance officers, and their clients; as well as observations of practitioner-client interactions, including the process of disbursement and collection, group meetings, and field visits with loan officers in urban Pakistan. It also comprises two district-level surveys: the microfinance outreach survey from the Pakistan Microfinance Network (PMN) and the Government of Pakistan's Social and Living Standards Survey (PSLM). The surveys are analyzed econometrically to test whether district-level socioeconomic differences affect patterns of outreach. This study broadens our understanding of the extent to which the local political economy shapes the outcomes of a market-based intervention, such as microfinance. It also provides an insight into the evolution of microfinance, specifically as framed by the global development discourse and subsequent public policy choices. Finally, the study provides an authoritative account of how institutional structure affects microfinance's effectiveness as a tool for poverty alleviation, empowerment and financial access.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / (UMI)AAI3214881. Adviser: Steven Epstein. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-04, Section: A, page: 1556.