Recent large-N studies conclude that inequality and ethnic distribution have no significant impact on the risk of civil conflict. This study argues that such conclusions are erroneous and premature due to incorrect specification of independent variables and functional forms. Case studies suggest that measures of inter-group inequality (horizontal inequality) and polarization (ethnic distribution distance from a bipolar equilibrium) are more accurate predictors of civil conflict, as they better capture the group-motivation aspect of conflict. This study explores whether indicators of inequality and ethnic distribution impact the probability of civil conflict across 38 developing countries in the period 1986 to 2004. Analysis reveals that horizontal inequality and polarization have significant, robust relationships with civil conflict. Furthermore, vertical, or individual, inequality is a robust, significant predictor of civil conflict when specified as a nonlinear function.

In the first chapter, I examine an incomplete markets economy in a politico-economic general equilibrium setting in which the median voter chooses the inflation rate. I use an environment where individuals face an uninsurable idiosyncratic labor productivity shock, and money is the only asset. Being an effective tax on savings, inflation acts as a redistribution mechanism transferring resources from the rich to the poor. I show that the median voter chooses a positive inflation rate as the politico-economic equilibrium outcome. In the second chapter, I analyze how forming a monetary union affects consumption and earnings inequalities through monetary policy changes implied by adopting a common currency. I use a two country open-economy, overlapping-generations model with heterogenous individuals to investigate these effects. In the model, inflation tax is the only redistributive tool and consumption and earnings inequalities are decreasing functions of inflation. When forming a monetary union, countries face a trade-off between the undesirable distributional effects of losing their monetary autonomy and benefits from the elimination of trade frictions. Findings suggest that when countries choose to do so, the country with higher initial inflation will definitely experience a fall in its inflation, hence an increase in its inequalities. In the country with lower initial inflation, however, inflation and inequalities might go in either direction depending on the degree of heterogeneity and the trade dependency between the countries. As the inflationary effect of uniting its monetary policy with a high inflation country can dominate the reducing effect of vanished trade frictions on inflation, this country might have an increase in its inflation, and a decrease in its inequalities. Finally, in the third chapter, I compare the indirect measure of inflation expectations derived by Ireland (1996b) to the direct measures obtained from expectations surveys in two case studies: the US and Turkey. Our results show that the inflation bounds calculated for US data are more volatile than survey results, and are too narrow to contain them due to low standard errors in consumption growth series stemming from high persistence. For the Turkish case, on the other hand, out of three different surveys on inflation expectations in Turkey compared with the bounds computed using Turkish data, expectations obtained by the Consumer Tendency Survey fall within these bounds throughout the whole sample period. Moreover we show that, as Fisher's theory suggests, real interest rates are extremely volatile in Turkey and movements in nominal interest rates cannot be directly used as an indicator of changes in inflation expectations. / text

The focus of this research is on hypotheses testing involving inequality constraints. In the first chapter of this dissertation, we propose Kolmogorov-Smirnov type tests for stochastic dominance relations between the potential outcomes of a binary treatment under the unconfoundedness assumption. Our stochastic dominance tests compare every point of the cumulative distribution functions (CDF), so they can fully utilize all information in the distributions. For first order stochastic dominance, the test statistic is defined as the supremum of the difference of two inverse-probability-weighting estimators for the CDFs of the potential outcomes. The critical values are approximated based on a simulation method. We show that our test has good size properties and is consistent in the sense that it can detect any violation of the null hypothesis asymptotically. First order stochastic dominance tests in the treated subpopulation, and higher order stochastic dominance tests in the whole population and among the treated are shown to share the same properties. The tests are applied to evaluate the effect of a job training program on incomes, and we find that job training has a positive effect on real earnings. Finally, we extend our tests to cases in which the unconfoundedness assumption does not hold. On the other hand, there has been a considerable amount of attention paid to testing inequality restrictions using Wald type tests. As noted by Wolak (1991), there are certain situations where it is difficult to obtain tests with correct size even asymptotically. These situations occur when the variance-covariance matrix of the functions in the constraints depends on the unknown parameters as would be the case in nonlinear models. This dependence on the unknown parameters makes it computationally difficult to find the least favorable configuration (LFC) which can be used to bound the size of the test. In the second chapter of this dissertation, we extend Hansen's (2005) superior predictive ability (SPA) test to testing hypotheses involving general inequality constraints in which the variance-covariance matrix can be dependent on the unknown parameters. For our test we are able to obtain correct size asymptotically plus test consistency without requiring knowledge of the LFC. Also the test can be applied to a wider class of problems than considered in Wolak (1991). In the last chapter, we construct new Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests for stochastic dominance of any pre-specified order without resorting to the LFC to improve the power of Barrett and Donald's (2003) tests. To do this, we first show that under the null hypothesis if the objects being compared at a given income level are not equal, then the objects at this given income level will have no effect on the null distribution. Second, we extend Hansen's (2005) recentering method to a continuum of inequality constraints and construct a recentering function that will converge to the underlying parameter function uniformly asymptotically under the null hypothesis. We treat the recentering function as a true underlying parameter function and add it to the simulated Brownian bridge processes to simulate the critical values. We show that our tests can control the size asymptotically and are consistent. We also show that by avoiding the LFC, our tests are less conservative and more powerful than Barrett and Donald's (2003). Monte Carlo simulations support our results. We also examine the performances of our tests in an empirical example. / text

The lives of Palestinian refugee women are complex and layered, embedded in the constraints and dictates of a patriarchal class system within a conservative culture that has been shaped by resistance to the Israeli military occupation since 1948. Over six decades of Israeli military occupation, ongoing national resistance, poverty and a maledominated society are a few of the forces that continue to shape the lives of refugee women today. The Israeli occupation has obstructed the development of a viable Palestinian economy and legal institutions that could serve as a framework for attaining women’s rights. In addition, Palestinian women, especially refugee women have limited employment and education opportunities due to the military violence which serves to strengthen patriarchal norms that discourage women seeking either higher education or work outside the home. Military occupation and traditional patriarchal society are therefore two inter connected processes central to the formation of gender identities and roles for women living in refugee camps. Palestinian refugee women are also part of a unique experience of being refugees on their own land. A central question arises as to whether, in the absence of an independent Palestinian state, refugee women can be agents of transformation in their personal, familial and community relations. I t is necessary to explore the potential for resistance and empowerment at the local level as defined and expressed by women and men in Jabaliya camp in an effort to assist in responding to this question. The everyday experiences of women explored in this study from the standpoint of women and men in Jabaliya refugee camp and their interpretations and perceptions of those experiences, are the basis for identifying everyday acts of resistance and potential avenues of empowerment among women in the camp. Everyday resistance and the process of empowerment are evident in the lives of women. The data show both subtle and open acts of defiance to oppressive ideas and social structures as well as a clear development of a critical understanding of women’s roles and status in the camp.

This dissertation is based on an ethnographic study of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) and the racial, cultural and political considerations that shape the meaning of diagnosis for Alaska Native individuals and families in Anchorage, Alaska. During the period from August 6, 2010 to through August 5, 2011, I worked with foster families and extended natural families living with and supporting individuals diagnosed with FASD. Documenting the experiences of families in their interactions with clinical, state, tribal and non-profit institutions, I sought to understand how a diagnosis of FASD structures opportunities, outcomes and everyday life experiences across several critical life domains, including health, education, employment, kinship and identity. Family narratives and experiences are highlighted to illustrate the ways in which difference is reproduced in everyday public understanding and clinical practice.

The first chapter provides some basic definitions and results from the theory of convex analysis and nonlinear mappings related to our work. Some sufficient conditions for the existence of a solution of problem (GVIP) are also recalled. In the second chapter, we first illustrate the scope of the auxiliary problem procedure designed to solve problems like (GVIP) by examining some well-known methods included in that framework. Then, we review the most representative convergence results for that class of methods that can be found in the literature in the case where F is singlevalued as well as in the multivalued case. Finally, we somewhat discuss the particular case of projection methods to solve affine variational inequalities. The third chapter introduces the variational convergence notion of Mosco and combines it with the auxiliary problem principle. Then, we recall the convergence conditions existing for the resulting perturbed scheme before our own contribution and we comment them. Finally, we introduce and illustrate the rate of convergence condition that we impose on the perturbations to obtain better convergence results. Chapter 4 presents global and local convergence results for the family of perturbed methods in the case where F is singlevalued. We also discuss how our results extend or improve the previous ones. Chapter 5 studies the multivalued case. First, we present convergence results generalizing those obtained when there is no perturbations. Then, we relax the scheme by means of a notion of enlargement of an operator and we provide convergence conditions for this inexact scheme. In Chapter 6, we build a bundle algorithm to solve problem (GVIP) and we study its convergence.

<p>This thesis is an analysis of how international policies on HIV prevention can be understood through a postcolonial perspective and how these prevention strategies are reflected nationally and locally in Babati, Tanzania. To gain knowledge of these aims I have focused on UNAIDS and the US’ government policies to get an idea of where the international discourse about HIV prevention stands. My empirical data in Babati is collected by semi-structural interviews with people who work with HIV prevention. I have used Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s understanding of Third World women, together with Jenny Kitzinger theory about women in HIV discourses and Karen M Booth’s view of how international policies are trying to empower women to reduce their risk of HIV infection. To assist my analysis I have focused on three notions, which are recurring in the HIV prevention discourse, these are: empowerment of women, condom use and sexual behaviour. These notions help to establish the HIV discourse and later I have compared the results with my theoretical framework and empirical findings. My final conclusion is that international policies on HIV prevention can be seen as imperialistic as they are promoting a certain change in sexual behaviour, such as reduction of partners and abstinence until marriage.</p>

Structural adjustment measures adopted during the early 1990s considerably altered the rural landscape throughout Zambia. Households responded and continue to respond in a variety of ways, although many do so under highly inequitable terms. Poverty rates, food insecurity, and income inequality all remain unacceptably high in Zambia, particularly in rural areas. Using a biocultural and livelihoods approach, this alternate "publication in scholarly journals" format dissertation examines some of the complexities that condition livelihoods and differentially shape biologies in rural Zambia today. Three main problems are explored: 1) the relationship between food insecurity and adult mental health; 2) piecework (casual labor) as a coping strategy and indicator of household vulnerability to food insecurity; and 3) the association between relative deprivation and adult physical health. Research for the dissertation took place in a rural area in Eastern Province, Zambia in 2009. The research employed a mixed methodology, collecting qualitative and household-level survey data during the rainy and dry seasons. Various statistical analyses were utilized in the three papers appended to the dissertation. The results were further explored using the findings from the qualitative data. In paper one, a positive relationship between food insecurity and poor mental health was found. Food insecurity during the dry season had a greater effect on mental health than in the rainy season. In paper two, the results demonstrate the importance of piecework labor as a coping strategy and the need to adopt a multi-period lens to robustly assess whether participation in piecework reflects a household's vulnerability to food insecurity. In the third paper, a negative association was established between relative deprivation and adult nutritional status. Together, the results from the dissertation provide clear evidence that both the material and relative circumstances of people play important roles in patterning variation in mental and physical health outcomes in rural Zambia.

Social reproduction is well established in educational literature. Diminished outcomes for students marked by class and race persist despite analysis and educational policy. Teachers articulate discourse to explain student success and failure and satisfy personal and professional investments (Miles, 1989; Popkewitz, 1998). Interviews with teachers in urban secondary schools point to the operation of discourse in the reproduction of inequality with profound effects on students on the margin. Meritocratic, individualist discourses privilege white, middle-class students, excluding others. Constructing students as Other and beyond reason (Popkewitz, 1998), teachers articulate discourses of motivation as explanatory of student success and failure and posit a neoliberal normative subjectivity as explanatory of success. Social, historical and economic factors are silenced. The instability and arbitrary closure of discursive articulation offer possibility for a progressive, ethical pedagogy.

Coronary heart disease rates show substantial geographic variation in England, which could be due to environmental variables (e.g. climate, air quality) or behavioural risk factors for coronary heart disease within populations. Previous work investigating this geographic variation has either used ecological analysis (i.e. areas as units of observation) or individual-level analysis. Ecological studies have been unable to account adequately for differences in behavioural risk factors within populations; individual-level studies have been under-powered at the area-level to include all potentially explanatory environmental variables. This thesis reports on ecological multi-level and spatial error regression analyses of coronary heart disease mortality and hospitalisation rates for all wards in England using environmental variables and synthetic estimates of the prevalence of behavioural risk factors as explanatory variables. Existing sets of synthetic estimates were subjected to studies of their validity. Validated synthetic estimates of the prevalence of smoking, low fruit and vegetable consumption, raised blood pressure, obesity and raised cholesterol were combined into a single index of unhealthy lifestyle to take account of collinearity between them. Final models successfully explained around 80% of large scale geographic variation (i.e. variation between wards in different areas of the country) in mortality rates for coronary heart disease and 60% in hospitalisation rates, and around 20% of the small scale geographic variation (i.e. variation between wards in close proximity) in mortality rates, and 30% in hospitalisation rates. The climate explained around 15% of large scale geographic variation in coronary heart disease rates after adjustment for the index of unhealthy lifestyle and socioeconomic deprivation. Urbanicity and air pollution explained a small amount of small scale geographic variation in coronary heart disease rates. The majority of explained geographic variation was due to the index of unhealthy lifestyle and deprivation. The results of this thesis confirm and extend findings from the British Regional Heart Study, report on the validity of synthetic estimates currently used to guide healthcare resource allocation, and introduce an index of unhealthy lifestyle that could be used in future ecological studies of chronic disease.