Thesis (M.A.P.S.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [61]-64).

Recent studies have identified a fundamental change in the character of much international migration. Skilled migrants have become a major component of most population flows and a majority in some cases. New forms of international labour migration and new historical and geographical contexts of international skill transfer, therefore require new frameworks for analysis. The main thrust of this research is to apply, extend and adapt a `migration channels' framework within the specific geographical context of Scotland's skilled international migration system. The concept of migration channels is founded on the observation that fewer and fewer international migrants themselves directly obtain jobs, work permits or residence visas. Increasingly, international skill transfers are regulated and manipulated by intermediary agencies. Identification and analysis of migration channels is therefore important since they play a key role in explaining firstly, which persons from the large pool of potential migrants are selected for migration, and, secondly, how a highly skilled international migration system is controlled and directed. A main aim of this research is to identify and understand the international migration processes operating in the Scottish context of skilled international migration. These processes are examined in relation to the differential selectivity and `control' each represents, with regard to the characteristics of the migrants involved with them, and the characteristics of their migration history. The importance of the concept of career and career advancement for explanation of skilled international migration is examined, in relation to respondents involved with each channel.

Economies of scale in infrastructure are a recognised factor in urban agglomeration. Less recognised is the effect of distribution or access costs. Infrastructure can be classified as: (a) Area-type (e.g. utilities); or (b) Point-type (e.g. hospitals). The former involves distribution costs, the latter access costs. Taking water supply as an example of Area-type infrastructure, the interaction between production costs and distribution costs at settlement level is investigated using data from England & Wales and the USA. Plant level economies of scale in water production are confirmed, and quantified. Water distribution costs are analysed using a new measure of water distribution output (which combines volume and distance), and modelling distribution areas as monocentric settlements. Unit distribution costs are shown to be characterised by scale economies with respect to volume but diseconomies with respect to average distance to properties. It follows that higher settlement densities reduce unit distribution costs, while lower densities raise them. The interaction with production costs then means that (a) higher urban density (“Densification”) is characterised by economies of scale in both production and distribution; (b) more spread out settlement (“Dispersion”) leads to diseconomies in distribution; (c) “Suburbanisation” (expansion into lower density peripheral areas) lies in between, with roughly constant returns to scale, taking production and distribution together; and (d) “Constant density” expansion leads to small economies of scale. Keeping (per capita) water supply costs low thus appears to depend as much on density as size. Tentative generalisation suggests similar effects with other Area-type infrastructure (sewerage, electricity supply, telecommunications); and with Point-type infrastructure (such as hospitals), viewing access costs as distribution costs in reverse. It follows that the presumption in urban economics that such services are always characterised by economies of scale and therefore conducive to agglomeration may not be correct.

There is still some ambiguity about what is sustainable development. From an economic point of view it involves maintaining a stock of assets for posterity that is equal to or greater than the stock of assets of the current generation. This is the basis of the capital approach to sustainable development. To measure how sustainable an economy is, based on the capital basis of sustainable development, multilateral institutions such as the World Bank use wealth accounting combined with the genuine savings approach to measure how well economies are saving for the future, net of current asset depreciation. These measures are useful for telling policy makers how their policies are contributing to sustainability and whether their economies are on a sustainable development path. Although these measures tell which assets are being depleted and the level of savings required, they do not tell why inadequate savings or inadequate investments might be occurring and how these assets are distributed among income groups within the economy. These measures are also not linked explicitly with the development prospects of the country and the needs of the current generation. This thesis attempts to assess if distributional outcomes affect how much countries save and therefore whether this has any impact on sustainability. To examine the impact of distribution on sustainability, a case study of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) is conducted. T&T has had a negative genuine savings rate for most of the last two decades, primarily due to the excessive exploitation of its natural resources (oil and natural gas) without sufficient savings or reinvestment of the revenues from these resources. Has the distribution of these resource rents had any impact on saving outcomes? An attempt is made to answer these questions by assessing how government expenditure is distributed and who benefits most from the exploitation of the natural resources. The analyses contained within the thesis show that expenditure on energy subsidies, the distribution of human capital and the overall distributions of rents are all regressively distributed.

In this thesis I argue that 'critical theorists', and the left in general, have paid insufficient attention to the psychological and pathological dimensions of the problems of modernity, including its environmental predicaments. To address this theoretical lacuna, I critically examine the conceptions of 'collective pathology' and 'higher sanity' as articulated in the relatively neglected work of Theodore Roszak and Ken Wilber, my position being that these two thinkers offer the most sophisticated readings of modernity and its 'ecological crises' in terms of pathology currently available. I also demonstrate a number of crucially significant implications of their work for contemporary critical theory. Consequently, the thesis is organized in two parts: in Part One I examine the work of Roszak and Wilber; in Part Two I explore major, critical implications of their work. The thesis begins with a critical examination of the concepts of 'pathology' and 'higher sanity' in Roszak and Wilber. I subsequently show how a critique in terms of these concepts alerts us to specific legimating tropes in ecocritical theory which have deligitimized competing discursive practices, and how such conceptions address and illuminate an ecological 'blind spot' in contemporary historical theorizing: no such study has been previously attempted. I then argue that conceptions of 'pathology' and 'higher sanity' indicate that debates between eco-centric notions of nature as 'real' and postmodernist notions of nature as a 'social construction' represent a double-bind; a false problem caused by specific unconscious and/or unacknowledged presuppositions. I go on to demonstrate how this double-bind can be overcome by, for example, exploring the psychology of Derridean deconstruction. In its examination of the critical implications of 'pathology' and 'higher sanity', this thesis can be read overall as a way of regrounding a radical ecological critique that is fully 'postmodem' - in the sense of aporetic - yet 'transcendent' at the same time. Consequently, this study is offered as an original resource for radical environmental activists who consider that the 'grounding' of their critique is undermined by postmodern and/or deconstructionist anti-foundationalism; I argue that such fears are 'groundless'.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Victoria University (Melbourne, Vic.), 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, Crestwood, New York, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 33-35).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Texas State University--San Marcos, 2009. / Vita. Appendices: leaves 132-141. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 142-152). Also available on microfilm.

Thesis (M.S.)--Western Kentucky University, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 85-88 ).