Factors of education in Africa and their regional differentiation Abstract Education is one of the primary driving forces of development and its importance in the poor countries is undoubtable. The aim of the diploma thesis is to identify the most significant factors affecting education in African states and to analyse them by using of the additional sources and data. The theoretical part points out the complexity in the education and introduces selected approaches in the education studies. The empirical part consists of the research of summary reports by UNDP (MDGs) and UNESCO (EFA) for countries with available reports in English; and analysis of particular factors connected of discussion with another scientific publications. These factors were classified on the basis of literature, to macro and micro factors first, subsequently according to the meaning. The most mentioned factors in the summary reports were school factors (school expenditures, teacher quality), political and economic factors (poverty) or sociocultural factors (women status). According to the conducted research it is obvious that the complex perspective of this issue and including as much factors as possible is essential. The variation coefficient was set for the possibility to find regional differentiation for particular groups of people...

Poverty is a historical development curse in Tanzania, which has incited extensive institutional reforms and policy changes and received numerous analyses in development research literature. Paradoxically, taking actions to study and alleviate poverty have increased with its continuing severity. A substantial body of research on poverty in the country suggests that, the vast majority of these studies focus on the content rather than the context of poverty alleviation processes. Specifically, the focus has been on: ideas, interests and struggles for resources between political leaders and bureaucrats believed to be taking place at the expense of the poor; ill-informed and unrealistic development policies and strategies; anti-development behaviour and tendencies of the peasants and their alleged conservatism and resistance to modernity, and weak incentive structures of the economy. There is little focus on the character and dynamics of the (historical) institutional context in which these economic conditions, struggles and policy initiatives emerge and take place. Motivated by the disappointing results of anti-poverty initiatives and weaknesses of previous studies, this study uses historical institutional impact analysis guided by institutionalist theory to analyse the problem. The central argument is that the existence and functioning character of institutions are necessary conditions for any human development activity. So, acceptance of the crucial importance of historically oriented institutional context analysis in understanding poverty alleviation initiatives and outcomes is imperative. The study draws on primary and secondary data collected through documentary review and interview methods to explain the ways in which institutional reforms result in an institutional order tolerant of poverty and which create conditions that perpetuate it. It does this by exploring the mode of historical institutional development and by examining the functioning character of the institutional order in respect of poverty alleviation. The study argues that achieving success in poverty alleviation related reforms is dependent on proper understanding of institutional realities of Tanzanian society and the functioning character of the existing institutional order. It proposes a reform process in which institutional legacies and their impact on society become the focus of the reform process itself. The findings indicate that, while reforms and policy changes have taken place and new patterns of behaviour introduced, the logics of institutions central to development and poverty alleviation have not, been fundamentally altered and new patterns of behaviour have simply perpetuated it. Specifically, the findings suggest: first, that institutional reforms pursued by the government are inadequate due to misconception of institutional problems of Tanzanian society; second, that the reforms have created new conditions which perpetuate poverty; and, third, that fundamental character of the functioning of the Tanzanian institutional order will need to change before such anti-poverty measures can hope to succeed. Thus, the study offers a correction to ill-informed poverty analysis by providing an alternative account of the root cause of poverty while insisting that a better understanding of the failure of poverty alleviation requires a strong focus on the historical institutional realties of the country.

This dissertation considers two of the most pressing concerns of the current time, income inequality and exposure to pollution, and provides evidence that these two concerns may in fact be causally linked. In order to do this, I assemble novel datasets on income inequality and pollution exposure, and propose an strategy for causally identifying the effect of the former on the latter. In the first substantive chapter, I develop a new dataset on income inequality measured at the US state and metropolitan area level. I compare the trends in income inequality measured using different income definitions. In general, pre-tax, pre-transfer income inequality has increased in most states since 1980, but post-fiscal income inequality has seen slow or no growth since about 2000. I conduct inference on how income inequality has changed using a semi-parametric bootstrap method, and consider potential correlates with state-level income inequality. I find that de-unionization is perhaps the most important factor driving rising inequality. In the second substantive chapter, I leverage satellite-derived remote sensing data on ground-level concentrations for two important pollutants (NOx and PM2.5) to measure the distribution of pollution exposure. I propose a dashboard approach to measuring environmental inequality and environmental justice, proposing and applying several candidate measures to the satellite datasets. I find that environmental inequality has largely decreased since 1998, as has average exposure. I consider potential correlations between neighborhood demographics and the distribution of exposure, but find inconclusive results. In the third substantive chapter, I attempt to resolve this ambiguity by considering whether rising income inequality within metropolitan areas (the subject of the first chapter) might causally affect the distribution of exposure across people (the subject of the second). Using a simulated instrumental variables identification strategy designed to address potential endogeneity due to locational sorting, I find that income inequality decreases the average level of exposure, but increases environmental inequality. I argue this is consistent with the benefits of pollution reduction accruing to the most advantaged, and provide evidence that this may work through the political system: inequality increases the responsiveness of politicians to the environmental demands of the rich.

Rising inequality affects the dynamics of macroeconomic variables both at home and abroad. Abroad, rising inequality causes an over-accumulation of foreign assets, creating persistent current account deficits. Inequality leads to rises in government transfers, and if raising tax revenue through a progressive income tax system is increasingly costly, sovereign nations could accumulate on debt and increase their default risk. At home, rising inequality in income increases household debt accumulation, which increases the probability of a household default crisis. This thesis examines the mechanisms behind the relationship between rising inequality and the above macroeconomic variables, and offers some policy recommendations. In the first chapter, I examine the relationship between top income inequality and the current account. Using panel error correction methods I observe a long-run relationship between rising top income shares and falling current account conditional on highly progressive income tax systems. Since tax revenues rise with top income inequality if marginal income taxes are progressive, the negative conditional relationship appears either if fiscal revenues are transferred to households who become more avid consumers, or if government expenditure increases along the inequality trend. I incorporate these findings into a dynamic general equilibrium model to study the effects of the top and bottom income tax cuts on the current account and fiscal balance. As the income share at the top rises, a tax cut at the margin to them improves the current account, since top income households are generally savers, but hurts the fiscal balance through revenue reduction. On the other hand, a bottom tax cut lowers the current account balance but does not have much of an adverse impact on the fiscal balance. In the second chapter, I examine how inequality increases the probability of sovereign default by studying the Latin American default episodes of the early 1980s. The sovereign borrows for the purposes of redistribution and to cover government expenditure. Default on sovereign bonds occur when the one time increase in utility of poor households due to higher transfers outweighs the risk of remaining in autarky for an extended period of time, and the resource cost of raising revenue through a more progressive income tax system becomes too high. In the third chapter, I examine how accumulation of household debt contributes to the probability of household crisis, which leads to an initial decrease in inequality but a persistent rise afterwards. Idiosyncratic increases in the income of impatient households increase their borrowing due to the rise in consumption of durable goods, but act as a pecuniary externality on other impatient households by driving up the interest rate. As a result the risk of an economy wide crisis rises. Inequality in income and wealth has significant implications for the dynamic decision making of households and governments, and widening inequality often leads to the accumulation of debt for households and governments alike. Knowing the mechanisms behind these relationships is important for the design of policies both for institutions that oversee the redistribution of wealth, as well as for institutions that oversee the financial markets of a country.

This thesis aims to provide a subjectivist account of women and people of colour's leadership experiences within a specific social context, in order to offer a contribution to the largely acontextual leadership literature. A multi-level, intersectional analytical framework was used to explore the experiences of people who are marginalised in their attempt to access and practice leadership. The study used the South African private sector as a social context with unique and interesting gender and race dynamics to conduct this case study. The experiences of significantly underrepresented groups in organisational leadership were explored by means of 60 in-depth, face-to-face interviews with women and people of colour in strategic leadership positions, aspiring leaders in leadership development programmes and key informants, all from the South African private sector. Interviewees were grouped according to their intersectional identities and responses were analysed considering individual-level challenges and enablers, organisational-level challenges and enablers and also by considering responses within the socio-historic and socio-legal context. Key findings include evidence of the problematic nature of theorising leadership as an element of the leader; support for theoretical frameworks of occupational segregation and embodied social identities; evidence of the internalisation and rationalisation of institutionalised discrimination; evidence of social identities being mutually constituting, reinforcing and naturalising; evidence of the conflation of gender, race and merit in the equality debate; as well as a strong aversion among research participants towards positive discrimnination initiatives. The findings also suggest several areas of possible further research. This study addressed the limitations of leadership research, which is characterised by leader-centricism, romanticism, objectivism, gendered and racialised norms and additive theorising. Findings make theoretical and policy contributions by problematising merit, exposing leadership in the South African private sector organisations as a site of intersectional identity salience, disrupting key assumptions underpinning leader-follower relations, highlighting the potential for leveraging adversity and also by demonstrating the importance of leadership language in either disrupting or reinforcing inequality.

O objetivo desta dissertação é estudar o problema de autovalor de Dirichlet para variedades riemannianas completas. Mais precisamente, pretendemos estudar uma cota por baixo para o -ésimo autovalor de um domínio limitado em uma variedade riemanniana completa. Tal cota é obtida fazendo-se uso de uma fórmula de recorrência de Cheng e Yang e um teorema de Nash. Ademais, pretendemos estudar uma desigualdade universal para os autovalores no espaço hiperbólico. / The goal of this dissertation is to study the Dirichlet eigenvalue problem for a complete riemannian manifold. More accurately, we intend to investigate a lower-bound for the -ℎ eigenvalue on a bounded domain in a complete riemannian manifold. Such a bound is obtained by making use of a recursion formula of Cheng and Yang and Nash’s Theorem. Furthermore, we study a universal inequality for eigenvalues of the Dirichlet eigenvalue problem on a bounded domain in a hyperbolic space (−1).

Capital humain et santé : une analyse de la formation et de la transmission des inégalités Mon projet de recherche s’articule autour de la question de la mobilité sociale. Les économistes s’accordent à penser que le capital humain est une dimension cruciale des trajectoires individuelles. L’objet de mon projet de recherche est d’évaluer l’impact de la santé des enfants sur leurs trajectoires futures en matière de niveaux d’éducation, de santé à l'âge adulte, d’offre de travail, de mobilité et de pauvreté. / Human capital and health : analysis of the formation and transmission of inequality

To explain and challenge the growing level of income inequality in organisations, this thesis collected and analysed corpora of texts about pay in UK universities from the press, remuneration committees and trade unions. Deploying the methodology of critical discourse analysis, it describes the contents of arguments as discourse types, interprets the reasoning behind arguments as genres of organisation theories and explains the common-sense assumptions ordering arguments as ideological values. Seeking answers, the analysis groups 30,038 data fragments into 74 first-order discourse types, 7 aggregate genres of organisation theories and 9 ideological values across three corpora of texts. Finding from the press suggested that actors drew upon the same set of organisation theories regardless of whether they were discursively challenging or defending the legitimacy of income inequality. This made it unfeasible to halt the level of income inequality because the underlying ideological values of competition, quantification and economic rationality only required the organisations to conform to unclear methodological processes. Thus, it is only possible to challenge the legitimacy of income inequality by proposing new members' resources, which objectified the exact contingencies for when it was appropriate. This insight lead to the creation of a new genre of organisation theory, which proposed paying employees relative to their comparative sacrifices. Findings from remuneration committees suggested that their members drew upon organisation theories to legitimise income inequality, which related to the ideological values of economic science, individualism and capitalistic hierarchy. However, how these ideological values constructed the legitimacy of their decisions lacked a substantiate rationality because the neoliberal model of capitalism was a source of legitimacy within itself. As such, the foundations of legitimacy were critiqued and a 2x2 matrix consisting of a process-outcome axis and pragmatic-moral axis was introduced. Applying this matrix to this corpus of text meant that none of these genres of organisation theories reasoned based on outcomes. Therefore, a new genre of organisation was proposed which focused on the income distribution shape for organisations. Findings from trade unions suggested that their representatives drew upon the same set of organisation theories to reinforce their own legitimacy in addition to interrogating the legitimacy of universities. These organisational theories were then related to the ideological values of performativity, exchange relations and freedom that hegemonically legitimised income inequality. Meanwhile, it was interpreted that trade unions relied on the neoliberal model of capitalism for their existence and were encouraging employees to participate in markets that only served the interests of employers. Therefore, a new members' resource was proposed, which conceptualised why sacrifice was a moral and pragmatic process for distributing pay to employees in comparison with other macro-economic frameworks. The findings from these three corpora of texts explained and challenged the social practices that were creating income inequality growth. Essentially, the ideological values of neoliberalism ordered discourse so that there was no reason to reduce the level of income inequality according to the dominate members' resources. Therefore, to change these social practices three new discourses were proposed which challenged the level of income inequality by illustrating the false consciousness embodied within their reasoning.

A temática de desenvolvimento tem sido debatida por diversos autores e este trabalho busca a convergência entre conceitos. A implicação é que desenvolvimento engloba as dimensões econômicas e sociais e, devem ainda ser consideradas características e especificidades regionais. A região estudada é o Noroeste do Rio Grande do Sul, onde se constata a desigualdade entre os níveis de desenvolvimento dos 216 municípios, utilizando como indicador o Idese. Nesse contexto, o objetivo do trabalho consiste em investigar se há relação entre os níveis desiguais de desenvolvimento e a dinâmica setorial dos municípios da região. Entende-se por dinâmica setorial as macroespecializações (agropecuária, indústria ou serviços) de cada município identificadas por meio do VAB. A análise da relação indica que à medida que o nível de desenvolvimento diminui a participação da agropecuária no VAB total aumenta. A partir desse resultado, o trabalho ainda traz a comparação das atividades agropecuárias entre grupos de municípios, um de alto e outro de baixo desenvolvimento, mas, os dois apresentam a maior parte da renda decorrente do setor agropecuário. As análises procedentes mostram que as principais atividades agropecuárias são as mesmas nos dois grupos – soja, milho e leite – porém, o que os diferencia é que no grupo de alto desenvolvimento há uma contribuição mais efetiva na geração de renda e emprego e ainda, um estímulo maior às atividades relacionadas à produção agropecuária do que no grupo de baixo desenvolvimento. Portanto, não é o setor ou as atividades que influenciam a desigualdade no desenvolvimento da região, mas sim, os desencadeamentos por essas originados. Sendo assim, para que os municípios de baixo desenvolvimento possam melhorar seus indicadores, é necessária a promoção de pesquisas e melhoramentos nas atividades já existentes e incentivos e investimentos na estrutura antes e após a produção (como atividades de apoio à produção e de comércio) para que elas tenham potencial de contribuir para o processo de desenvolvimento. / The issue of development has been discussed by several authors and this paper seeks convergence between concepts. The implication is that development encompasses the economic and social dimensions, and regional characteristics and specificities should still be considered. The study area is the Northwest of Rio Grande do Sul, where we see the gap between development levels of 216 cities, using the Ides as an indicator. In this context, the objective of the study is to investigate whether there are linkages between the different levels of development and dynamic sector of the municipalities. Dynamic sector is understood by the macroespecialization (agriculture, industry or services) of each municipality identified by the VAB. The analysis of the relationship indicates that as the level of development reduces, the participation of agriculture in total VAB increases. From this result, the dissertation still shows the comparison of agricultural activities among groups of districts, one of high and one of low development, but the two have most of the income arising from the agricultural sector. The proceeding analysis shows that the main agricultural activities are the same in both groups - soybeans, corn and milk - but what distinguishes them is that at the high development group, assistance is most effective in generating income and employment and also a greater stimulus to activities related to agricultural production as compared to the low development group. Therefore, it is not the sector or activities that influence the unequal development of the region, but rather the side affects of them. Thus, for municipalities of low development to improve its indicators, it is necessary to further research and improve in existing activities, incentives, and investments in the structure before and after production (such as activities which support production and trade) so that they have potential to contribute to the development process.

A ausência de consenso a nível mundial sobre o que é uma Smart City abre margem para a apropriação do termo por uma retórica de consumo tecnológico que pode não ter compromisso algum com melhorias sociais e urbanas. Em um cenário em que estudos de caso e soluções-padrão são amplamente utilizados, torna-se problemático o fato de que muitos dos casos estudados na literatura foram pensados para cidades europeias, asiáticas e norte-americanas, que apresentam uma dinâmica social signifi cativamente diferente das brasileiras e latino-americanas. A presente pesquisa visa, portanto, contribuir com uma abordagem crítica e sistemática para o entendimento do discurso Smart City e seus desdobramentos práticos no contexto de metrópoles latino-americanas. Por meio de um panorama geral sobre o fenômeno Smart City, é feita uma revisão da literatura científi ca, documentos, notícias e projetos para compreender o discurso em torno da Smart City e sua evolução nos últimos vinte anos. Esse discurso é então confrontado com as práticas e fenômenos tipicamente encontrados nas metrópoles latino-americanas, tendo como referência a Região Metropolitana de São Paulo. Em seguida, são levantadas diversas fragilidades conceituais e fantasias em torno da Smart City e da atribuição da inteligência à cidade e outros objetos da técnica. Parte-se para um questionamento à própria validade do termo Smart City e coloca-se a importância de qualifi car a discussão em torno dos cenários urbanos futuros. Dada a própria natureza plural e complexa do ambiente urbano, defende-se a necessidade de uma refl exão capaz de abrir margem para novas possibilidades de discurso e prática projetual. São elencados os pilares essenciais ao sustento de tal refl exão, assim como algumas diretrizes e considerações visando a incorporação desta ao projetar do urbano. Por fi m, são sugeridas novas dimensões de análise que permitam reconhecer os aspectos problemáticos levantados ao longo deste trabalho. / The worldwide lack of consensus regarding what constitutes a Smart City leaves the concept vulnerable to being seized by a rhetoric of technological consumption, to which urban and social improvements might not be of concern. In a scenario where case studies and off-the-shelf solutions are widely used, a troubling fact arises: many of said cases and solutions where designed for North-American, European and Asian cities, which have social dynamics signifi cantly different from the ones seen in Brazilian and Latin-American cities. This research aims to contribute to systematic critical approaches seeking to comprehend Smart City discourse and it\'s practical developments in the context of Latin-American metropolises. By way of a panoramic view of the phenomena and the comparison of different academic and non-academic sources, an attempt is made to understand the evolution of Smart City discourse over the last twenty years. This discourse is them compared to the practices and phenomena typically present in Latin American metropolises, with São Paulo\'s Metropolitan Region as a reference. Several conceptual frailties and fantasies surrounding the Smart City and the general attribution of knowledge to cities - or any other technical object - are raised. The very validity of the term Smart City is put into question and the importance of qualifying the discussion on future urban scenarios is made evident. The plural and complex nature of the urban environment calls for a refl ection capable of producing new possibilities of discourse and design practices. The essential pillars for such a refl ection are proposed, as well as a few directives and remarks in an attempt to incorporate it into the design of urban spaces. Finally, new dimensions are proposed to guide analytical attempts towards recognizing the troublesome aspects outlined in this research.