In the last few decades female permanent sterilization became the most used contraception method in Mexico. During this time the demand for short-term contraceptives fell consistently. The shift in the demand for contraceptives raises concerns among demographers that the timing of children may remain unchanged regardless of the observed reductions in period fertility rates. After presenting a brief discussion of the economic theory on fertility behaviour (Chapter 2) and introducing the reader to the main demographic issues of modem Mexico (Chapter 3), Chapter 4 assesses these ideas in the context of modelling the timing of a first child, using duration models as main analysis tool. Findings suggest that young cohorts of women are effectively delaying first birth relative to the experience of older generations. Chapter 5 reports a study of the determinants of completed fertility. Special attention is given to studying how characteristics such as religion and ethnic group affect the likelihood of transition from low to high order parities. An innovative Double-Hurdle count model is developed for the analysis. Findings indicate that education and Catholicism are associated with reductions in the likelihood of transition from parities lower than four to high order parities. Being an indigenous language speaker increases the odds of a large family. Chapter 6 enquires how fertility plans of young individuals who live in intact families (i.e., those where both biological parents are present) differ from fertility plans of young individuals who live in non-intact families. The role of family background in the formation of fertility plans is studied. Count data models are used in the analysis, including an innovative technique for estimating quantile regression for count data. Findings suggest that an absent father reduces planned fertility, especially when women have weak preferences towards children. Education decreases planned fertility if strong preferences towards children are felt.

The first part of this thesis attempts a synthesis of published research in the general area of market segmentation. Because of the sheer volume of such research the thesis is primarily concerned with domestic, consumer research since 1970, adequate literature reviews being availahle of research prior to this time (see Frank, (1968) and Frank, Massy and Wind (1972)). Study of the literature indicates the growing use of situation specific variables in segmentation research coupled with the increased usage of multivariate techniques. Of particular interest are the more recent attempts to link market segmentation and product positioning methodology. Existing studies, however, are based largely on small, "convenience" samples without validation samples, and tend to be technique oriented, that is they are applications of existing or new techniques rather than attempts to solve problems. The empirical research presents a market segmentation methodology concerned with market gap identification, i.e. segments not adequately satisfied with existing product offerings. The methodology is tested on a large, representative sample of consumers in a particular market using a split sample for analysis and validation and a variety of alternative types of data and methods. Serious doubts are raised about the application of the INDSCAL model for dealing with individual differences in perception and the application of the PREFMAP model for identifying respondents' ideal brand locations. This work suggests that perceptual space segmentation is best accomplished through direct clustering of respondents on the basis of brand similarity judgements and that identification of brand requirements is best accomplished through the rating of the ideal brand along the dimensions of perception. The research indicates segments of consumers with homogeneous perceptions of current brand offerings and homogeneous brand requirements. These segments are further evaluated to determine their value to management as target markets, suggesting alternative marketing strategies.

Social security systems have come under attack with claims that they negatively impact savings, capital formation and the labour supply. This, together with the near-bankruptcies of some social security systems have led to a series of reforms, including the privatisation of the system with the assignment of individual accounts to contributors. There have, however, been little efforts in isolating the cause of the failure of the social security systems and in the identification of the factors which may enhance performance. It is this gap, which this study attempts to fill by investigating the relationship between governance, performance and administration of the social security systems by addressing the key question "How do governance factors impact on the performance and administration of social security systems in the Member States of the Organisation Of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS)?" The main findings of the study are that autonomy and independence of the social security organisations, accountability, transparency, diversification of the investment portfolio, professional expertise, partnership-building among the stakeholders and involvement or the plan participants at the board level are important in enhancing the performance and administration of the social security organisations. The results of the analysis also suggest that it is important to ensure that the persons chosen to represent the plan participants at the board level are persons of integrity with the requisite qualifications and qualities. This study, it is hoped will inform and lead to a re-examination of the reform debate to include the role of governance in the reform and sustainability of social security organisations worldwide.

This analysis of the margarine industry in the presence of Unilever, identifies and examines the economic issues of structure, behaviour and performance, against a background of policy issues related to international trade, concentration and nutrition. The major divisions of the thesis are (i) the political and international trade issues (ii) propaganda and advertising (iii) the nutrition problem (iv) margarine demand (v) the degree of monopoly in the margarine industry (vi) Government White Papers and multinational corporate activity.' An attempt is made, both by descriptive and empirical treatment of the subject matter, to demonstrate the danger inherent in the oligopolistic manipulation of consumer demand and public opinion by propaganda and advertising, and to consider the evidence of resource wasteage. Empirical work, mainly be using techniques of multivariate regression analysis, tests issues in the nutrition problem and also estimates aggregate demand functions for margarine as well as estimating the change in performance due to changing structure and performance. Attention is also paid to the influence of oligopolistic price adjustment in the macroeconomic problem of inflation. The main thrust lies in the direction of considering adjustment problems in time series data. In demand estimation it is shown by allowing for quality variation and by allowing the influence of advertising to build up over time, that whilst aggregate demand for margarine appears to remain uninfluenced by advertising expenditure, substantially higher values are obtained than are usual for own price elasticity. In relation to the performance issue, the results indicate a more rapid adjustment to changes in the aggregate advertising variable than are usually obtained. Results are also reported which suggest that price adjustment to cost changes are rapid, and this is attributed to the structure of margarine production. Apart from technical issues the main conclusions are that the nutrition controversy is being influenced unduly by propaganda and that independently of this, resource wasteage by the margarine oligopoly would be reduced by an increase in competition, and by the control of advertising. Again it is suggested gains, in relation to the problem of UK self sufficiency and in relation to the problem of inflation, could be expected following an increase in competition. The benefits of the control of costs as well as prices are considered as an alternative policy measure.

The basic assertion of this thesis is that policy makers' belief systems and economic institutions have to change their structures and contents as the nation's economic developmental stage is upgraded. Put differently, a state's economic performance or achievement of economic objectives will be facilitated if there is no cleavage or conflict among economic policy, economic belief systems, and economic institutions. This means that the utility of the developmental state is valid until a nation's economy is in a take-off position. Persistent developmentalism after this stage will result in developmentalism losing its validity and becoming a main obstacle for further economic development. At this time, more liberalised economic policies which are not only supported by changed belief systems and institutions but also compatible with the neo-liberalising international political economy are needed. In other words, this thesis does not seek to answer the question 'which is the better strategy for economic development between developmentalism and neo-liberalism?' but emphasises the importance of the proper timing of transition from developmentalism to a liberalised and deregulated economy which is compatible with a mature civil society and the neo-liberalising international political economy.

This thesis studies the determinants of pay and well-being. The first three chapters use new British employer-employee data to study the determinants of pay. Chapters three and four are also interested in the determinants of job satisfaction, whilst chapters five and six analyse factors that shape reported well-being. Chapter two tests whether firms share product market rents with their employees. After controlling for worker and firm fixed effects, we observe evidence in support of rent-sharing upon weekly earnings, but no robust positive effect upon hourly pay. The third chapter analyses the observed positive relationship between employer size and wages. It designs a test as to whether this relationship reflects a compensating differential. This is not found to offer a good explanation as to why wages are greater in large establishments. Instead, correlates of worker skill and person fixed effects are most successful in explaining the plant size-wage differential. There has been very little research on racial differences in job satisfaction levels. Chapter 4 examines the relationship between race, pay and well-being. Workplaces that employ more ethnic minority employees are associated with lower levels of job satisfaction, for both white and non-white workers. Non-white employees are paid less than otherwise similar white employees, and are less satisfied with their pay even when pay is held constant. One of the most fundamental ideas in economics is that money makes people happy. Chapter 5 constructs a test. In the spirit of a natural experiment, it shows individuals who receive windfalls have higher mental well-being in the following year. It calculates the size of the effect. The final chapter studies the well-being of British public sector workers in the 1990s. Relative to private sector employees, stress levels and job satisfaction within the public sector are shown to have significantly worsened over the decade.

Marx's critique remains the most incisive analysis of capitalism to date, though the transformations which capitalism has undergone require that his conceptual apparatus be radically overhauled. I have attempted to do so through a topological twisting of his conceptual assemblage, highlighting new elements and relations. In this way I am lead to questions of time already highlighted by Marx, in relation to an immanent and constitutive ontology. However, my primary concern remains with the contemporary strategies of capitalist command, and the new conditions and strategies of resistance it demands. Concrete/Abstract: or. The German Ideology - i)The question of ideology, the failure of its problematic, and the initial step beyond: fetishism as 'dissimulation objective' (Deleuze); ii) the function of money and the emergent 'truth in practice' of an ontology of efficient material-abstraction. Total Critique is a Pragmatics - i) The transformation of Critique from partial to Total, and the emergence of a differential materialist ontology, ii) the critique of the labour theory of value, and the transformation of capitalism into a project of heterogeneity management (fundamental ontology). Subsumption - i) An account of Braudel's notion of the anti-market, and a critique of the reduction of the anti-market to capitalism; ii) an account of real subsumption in terms of a temporal ontology. Time and Resistance - i) A re-reading of 'historical determinism' in the light of Marx's letters to Vera Zasulich on the Russian commune; ii) the question of becoming as opposed to history through a diagramming of masses rather than the contraposing of classes; iii) temporality as motor of flight/control: the syntheses of time as a diagramming of efficient capitalist material-abstraction, and of the strategies of a critical materialist pragmatics.

This thesis analyses the effects of coffee booms on the money market, the real exchange rate, and the business cycle in Colombia. Chapter 2 presents an overview of the coffee sector in the country, including a brief description of its macroeconomic role, and unique institutional structure. Chapter 3 investigates, from a simulation perspective, two empirical difficulties that arise in econometric modelling when using quarterly data, as is done in chapters 4 and 5. The first practical concern is whether to conduct the econometric analysis on data that have been subjected to seasonal adjustment or in terms of unadjusted data. The simulation results provide a justification for using seasonally unadjusted data, as the use of filters reduces the power of the Dickey-Fuller and Phillips-Perron cointegration tests. The second difficulty concerns an empirical regularity encountered when analysing the Colombian quarterly series of money supply and GDP, both of which exhibit a structural break (or change) in the seasonal pattern. We find that these structural breaks bias both unit root and seasonal root tests, so that new critical values must be tabulated allowing for a change in either the level and/or the seasonal pattern of the underlying series. Chapter 4 examines the monetary consequences of coffee booms. The theoretical work on this subject shows that under a regime of fixed exchange rates, export booms affect both the demand and the supply for money. Within this theoretical framework, we assess whether the coffee booms of the second half of the seventies and mid eighties led to excess money supply in Colombia. We find a direct association between coffee export booms and excess money supply, implying that external disturbances jeopardise the ability of the economic authorities to carry out successful monetary policy. Chapter 5 uses the Johansen procedure to estimate a real exchange rate determination model for Colombia. We find one cointegrating vector, which can be thought of as a long-run real exchange rate equation. The deviations of the real exchange rate from its long-run equilibrium relationship, after correcting for the short-run dynamics, are interpreted as a measure of real exchange rate misalignment. The simulation performance of the model, during the period of estimation and three years into the future, is particularly good, with the simulated real exchange rate reproducing the general long-run behaviour of the actual series. Chapter 6 develops an intertemporal disequilibrium model in order to analyse the effects of temporary, anticipated, and permanent coffee price shocks on a small open economy under Keynesian unemployment. Our results indicate that a coffee price boom (whether temporary, anticipated or permanent) increases nontradable output in the short and long run (a similar result is obtained when we discuss other disequilibrium regimes). The basic model is then extended by including a government sector that administers a coffee price stabilisation fund, and by allowing capital market imperfections. Our results indicate that when the government is able to borrow on more favourable terms in international capital markets than households, the stabilisation fund neutralises part of the short-term effect of a temporary coffee price boom. On the other hand, when the government and the private sector borrow on the same terms, the stabilisation fund turns out to be redundant.

One often meets the view that economic regulation should be understood in terms of Pareto efficiency. Economic theories of law have traditionally focused on concepts such as market failure, efficiency, and inefficiency. Proponents assume that under the conditions of perfect competition, rational economic actors will enact courses of action that tend to induce Pareto outcomes. The idea of perfect competition means that markets which are competitive will induce efficient outcomes. The perfect competition approach has focused on the conception of market failure as the foundation for designing regulatory policy. Until recently, lawyers overwhelmingly relied upon a model of economic contract, developed over the last two decades in law and economics, as a normative structure to guide efficient decision-making.

From an economic perspective the value of a group of related businesses under one management is derived from the potential for synergy, based on the exploitation of underlying economies of scope. To realise this inherent economic value, organisational theorists have argued that a purposively cooperative pattern of structures, systems and processes must be put in place. Divisions of modem multidivisional companies are internal, quasi-corporations of related businesses and, as such, theoretical economic/organisational rationales would posit divisions as cooperative enterprises. Using a sample of divisions purposively chosen to comprise businesses that were highly related, this thesis set out to explore the extent to which divisional managing directors expressed views and initiated organisational dynamics consistent with a cooperative perspective. Semi-structured interviews with senior divisional personnel in 12 divisions and with business and functional level staff in 2 of these provided the prime source of data which served as a basis from which a case study was written for each division. The cases were analysed in terms of the membership benefits (value) the divisional managing director was attempting to optimise for the component businesses and the extent to which he expressed a cooperative orientation and was overseeing cooperative structures, processes and systems. Two categories of division are identified. The 'cooperative' grouping is consistent with the theoretical view of economies of scope and cooperative structures but a larger number of divisions are categorised as 'non-cooperative' with perspectives, systems etc. consistent with a traditional M-form orientation of autonomous, non-interacting businesses. Reasons for this mismatch of theory and practice are discussed with the existence of non-cooperative divisions being explained as the consequence of a variety of organisational contingencies. Implications for divisional management and practice in multidivisional firms are suggested.