Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Amid notable and ongoing research about housing, structural hurdles crippling state efforts to guarantee the right to adequate housing have been extensively analysed and widely recognised. Albeit study after study demonstrates bureaucratic lethargy, the housing challenge is much complex. Harare increasingly appears to be a city in a housing crisis. The depredations of politics have repeatedly frustrated orderly urbanisation. Comparatively little on the politics of housing has been written or studied. Consequently, the realisation of the right to housing is under constant threat with the city spiralling into endemic disorder. The turbulent policy landscape since 2000 plunged housing into a chaotic and unstable milieu

In developing countries rural communities are normally geographically isolated contributing to both poverty levels and the deficiency in the participation of social and economic activities. Accessibility to education constitutes one of the primordial links between the economic growth of a country and the development of high skilled population. Given South Africa's unique history, divisions throughout the landscape incapacitate inhabitants of rural communities in reaching opportunities and services, therefore, aggravating issues related to social exclusion and inequality. This study aims to determine accessibility levels in South African rural regions by looking at different aspects that entangle the theory behind it, specifically: the zone attractiveness and impedance. With that in mind, the investigations carried out are firstly directed towards accessibility at the provincial level and thereafter a focus area is determined. At the provincial level, it was found that the Northern Cape presented the greatest disadvantages. However, given insufficient resources and data related to this province, the Cape Winelands Municipality District was chosen as the area to extend the investigations. When assessing the focus area, the study deployed a GIS-based analysis wherein potential and real accessibility were determined. Initially using the gravity measure, and subsequently using a survey carried out in the region. The study has revealed that Stellenbosch and Robertson are the towns experiencing high accessibility levels. Notwithstanding, most principal towns still experience critically low accessibility indexes. The findings of this study can, therefore, be useful in indicating areas that need further studies or are experiencing disadvantages regarding accessibility.

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Magister Commercii - MCom / Inequality in South Africa has long been recognised as one of the most salient features of our society. Despite many efforts by the government to reduce inequality since our democratic transition in 1994, progress has been limited. The historic patterns of accumulation and economic concentration have continued to feed into South Africa’s patterns of uneven and combined development. Moreover, financial markets in many countries are undeniably incomplete, segmented, and inefficient. This is largely attributed by high transaction costs for both institutions and clients as well as biases against certain parts of the market. Therefore, people will continue to transact outside the formal financial system if they lack easy access and use of formal financial institutions. Private resources are often used in formal areas that provide better access and higher return on investment for private institutions. As a result, the development of the poorest areas remains relatively neglected.

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博士（経済学） / 甲第457号 / 124p / Hitotsubashi University

This thesis examines the relation between ascribed factors and the distribution of social capital among young adults. Information about the type of ties used in access to social capital is utilized to provide an understanding of the social contexts and mechanisms that play a role in the creation of social capital. The study measures social capital with a position generator methodology and utilizes the first wave of the Swedish LIFINCON survey, which is a study of 19 year olds of Iranian, Yugoslavian and Swedish origin. The results show that having socioeconomically advantaged parents and living in a large city region is associated with higher levels of social capital. Gender differences are found in the accessed range of social capital as women more often reached positions with the lowest prestige value. Background in Iran or Yugoslavia has a positive effect on social capital and parents’ class position in the country of origin is important for their children’ social capital. It is argued that social closure and social distance can explain why social background is important in determining access to high prestige social capital and that the composition of an individual network is affected by the average resources in a “group” or region.

My work centers on drawing economic insights about the macroeconomy based on disaggregated mechanisms and empirical patterns. In my first chapter, I study technology upgrading in the Chinese manufacturing sector and its dynamics after trade liberalization. I first document that Chinese firms often engage in capital substitution episodes, during which firm labor productivity increases, labor shares drop, and skill intensity increases. A model in which firms adopt new skill-intensive technology through investment in capital upgrading naturally rationalizes these facts, linking capital substitution events to technological change. Empirically, trade liberalization shocks reduce capital substitution at Chinese firms, raising the possibility that trade liberalization may delay short-run growth. I then build a quantitative GE model with heterogeneous firms, capital upgrading, and trade liberalization shocks. After liberalization in the model, strategically delayed capital upgrading by firms pushes technological and consumption gains further into the future, meaningfully expanding the horizon over which trade gains manifest themselves. In the second chapter, I exploit rich data on tens of millions of housing transactions from Zillow to document poor house price growth in manufacturing-heavy regions in the US. The chapter shows that manufacturing shares strongly predict dampened house price growth, mechanically contributing to a rise in housing wealth inequality across regions. However, this price growth difference is particularly strong for lower-priced houses, amplifying inequality within regions as well. Overall, I find that cross-sectional house price inequality has increased by around 10%, with around a third of this increase due to the relative decline of lower-value homes. In the third chapter, I combine empirical tools and structural modeling to measure the effect of monetary policy on consumption through housing. Exploiting quarterly US data, I estimate empirically that a 1% unexpected interest rate shock causes average house prices to drop by about 1.4% in two years. Feeding this empirical response into an incomplete markets model, I find that aggregate consumption shifts by around 0.3% in response to the shock. A lean-against-the-wind monetary policy can stabilize consumption dynamics along a transition path.

This paper examines if increased microfinance intensity reduces the income inequality in 11 Latin American countries from 2005 to 2015. Gini coefficient was used as a measure of income inequality, while microfinance intensity was derived by dividing the number of active borrowers by the country's population. A panel data was constructed with 384 microfinance institutes present in the countries studied. To examine the relationship, a pooled OLS and a country clustered fixed-effects model was conducted using the specific-to-general method. Both methods showed a significant negative relationship between the Gini coefficient and microfinance intensity. However, it was a relatively small impact at -0.004% for every percent increase in microfinance, which confirms our hypothesis that a higher MFI participation leads to a decrease in income inequality. These results are in line with previous studies conducted, although, to our knowledge, this is the first macroeconomic framework study conducted on multiple Latin American countries at once.