The main research question in this thesis explores why some people volunteer and give money compared to those that do not. The thesis builds on existing research that explains volunteering and giving, but is primarily concerned with showing how the social environment – or the context – in which people live can explain individual decisions to volunteer and give. This thesis answers three main research questions with this central theme in mind. First, how do the background characteristics of people explain whether they volunteer or give? Second, net of background characteristics of people, how does the social environment (context) that people live in explain volunteering and giving? Third, how do background characteristics of people and the social environment in which they live interact to explain volunteering and giving? Each of the four empirical chapters focuses on research questions that have received limited attention in the literature, while also utilizing relatively unique data, in relatively unique contexts. The main results of this study are as follows. Comparatively, the shared profile of a volunteer and charitable giver is someone who is middle aged, more educated, married, richer, healthier, and a religious service attendee. Contextual country characteristics also displayed an independent effect of these individual-level characteristics: religious diversity and belonging to a religious minority group was associated with a greater likelihood of volunteering, but are not associated with giving. Income inequality is associated with a decreased likelihood of volunteering and giving for respondents in developed countries, whereas the opposite is true for respondents in developing countries, supporting Wilkinson’s relative income hypothesis. A curvilinear relationship exists between national devoutness and volunteering, whereas a strong positive correlation exists between national devoutness and giving. Females are more likely to volunteer and give in societies that exhibit more gender equality; and the lower educated are more likely to volunteer in more educated societies, but that they are not more likely to give in these societies. There is no support for the idea that income disparities in volunteering and giving are exacerbated in more socially unequal societies. In England, there was no support for the idea that a stable residential area promotes volunteering and giving among adults, while neighbourhood deprivation and ethnic diversity were strong negative predictors of both behaviours. Among the youth demographic in England, religious diversity of schools is not associated with any form of civic engagement. Ethnic diversity is positively related to school extra curricular activities, but negatively with youth club participation. Youths attending private schools were more likely to take part in school-based extra-curriculars, but less likely to take part in out of school clubs and groups.

This thesis addresses three themes relating to climate change. The first is which types of fossil fuel to leave in the ground when they can differ in both their extraction cost and emissions rate. The analysis shows that without resource constraints there will always be use of at least one fossil fuel in the steady-state. With exhaustion constraints, any fossil fuel that has a lower extraction cost than the marginal cost of the backstop will be extracted in finite time regardless of the emissions rate. The only environmental consideration is the timing of extraction rather than leaving fossil fuel stock in the ground forever. The second theme is how altruistic concern of individuals for the well-being of others influences the socially optimal consumption levels and optimal emissions tax in a global context. If individuals have altruistic concern but believe that their consumption is negligible, they will not change their behaviour. However, non-cooperative governments maximising domestic welfare will internalise some of the damage inflicted on other countries depending on the level of altruistic concern individuals have and the cooperative optimum also changes as altruism leads individuals to effectively experience damage in other countries as well as the direct damage to them. Still, for behaviour to change, individuals need to make their decisions in a different way. The third chapter develops a new theory of moral behaviour whereby individuals balance the cost of not acting in their own self-interest against the hypothetical moral value of adopting a Kantian form of behaviour, asking what would happen if everyone else acted in the same way as they did. If individuals behave this way, then altruism matters and it may induce individuals to cut back their consumption. But nevertheless the optimal environmental tax is exactly the same as the standard Pigovian tax.

Comment résoudre les problèmes de congestion liés au développement urbain ? Les investissements massifs dans les infrastructures et le traitement monétaire et coercitif des comportements ayant montré leurs limites, nous proposons d'explorer la possibilité de favoriser les comportements positifs (covoiturage, vélo, télétravail). Nous commençons par élargir le modèle comportemental de l'individu en posant comme préalable à l'étude des motivations la prise en compte du cadre dans lequel il se situe. Nous justifions théoriquement cet apport principalement par les travaux du psychologue Daniel Kahneman et du sociologue Ervin Goffman. Nous précisions ensuite notre démarche méthodologique : en montrant combien la démarche des expérimentations de laboratoire est reliée à l'hypothèse comportementale de l'homo œconomicus, nous montrons la cohérence de notre hypothèse de cadre avec celle des expériences de terrain. Nous décrivons ensuite trois expériences visant à montrer (i) comment le cadre correspond à une représentation confortée par un discours dominant (ii) l’importance de la mesure rétroactive de cette représentation et (iii) comment les motivations agissent à l’intérieur de ce cadre. Nous en déduisons plusieurs principes susceptibles de favoriser un changement de comportements de mobilité à même de traiter le problème de congestion : (i) la place de l’individu dans les schémas de transports, (ii) le temps ou le bien être comme indicateur de mesure et (iii) les représentations collectives comme support de coordination. / How to solve congestion problems related to urban development? As the massive investment in infrastructure and the monetary and coercive treatment of behaviors have shown their limits, we propose instead to explore the promotion of positive behavior (carpooling, biking, telecommuting). We start by expanding the behavioral model of the individual, by taking into account the context (frame) in which it happens. We justify this contribution primarily through the work of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman and the sociologist Ervin Goffman . Then we clarify our methodological approach: by showing how the process of laboratory experiments is connected to the behavioral factors of the homo oeconomicus, we show the consistency of our frame hypothesis with field experiments. We then describe three experiments to show (i) how the frame is underpinned by a dominant discourse (ii) the importance of the retroactive measure of this representation and (iii) how motivations acts within that frame. We derive several principles to promote a change of mobility behavior able to treat congestion: (i) the place of the individual in transport schemes, (ii) using time or well-being as a measurement indicator and (iii)collective representations as coordination enablers.

The three chapters of this thesis investigate the decision-making processes behind financial and donation behaviour of individuals. Chapter One studies the impact of prior learning and competition on the presence of the disposition effect in a venture capital setting. It reveals that prior learning leads to better venture choices and confirms competition as the most efficient form of resource allocation and management. Chapter Two addresses the empirical finding of a negative relationship between income and charitable giving as a proportion of that income. As the first study to replicate this downward relationship in an experiment, it exposes income rank information as one of the factors causing the relationship. Using a unique dataset from a natural experiment in Chapter Three, I explore the effect of increased publicity via additional visibility and information on the household donation behaviour. The results show that donations increase with public announcements and the announcement order. / Los tres capítulos de esta tesis investigar los procesos de toma de decisiones que describen la conducta financiera y la donación de los individuos. Capítulo I estudia el impacto de la formación previa y la competencia en la presencia del efecto de la disposición en un entorno de capital de riesgo. El estudio confirma que la formación previa favorece el proceso de selección y que la competencia permite la asignación más eficaz de recursos y gestión. Capítulo II investiga la presencia de una relación negativa entre los ingresos y las donaciones (representados en proporción de esos ingresos). El capitulo presenta los resultados del primer estudio que examina esta relación con un experimento y propone que entre los factores que explican esta relación es la información sobre los ingresos personales comparado con los de sus compañeros. Capítulo III utiliza una base de datos única que contiene los resultados de un experimento natural y presenta resultados empíricos sobre el efecto de una mayor publicidad a través de la visibilidad e información adicional sobre el comportamiento de la donación de los hogares. Los resultados muestran que las donaciones aumentan con los anuncios públicos y el orden de estos anuncios.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the misconduct of learners in secondary schools in the Ntoane village. It served to determine the • extent to which teenage fall pregnant; • the intensity in which teachers tackle gender violence in schools; • the manner in which the parents’ culture and values are enforced by the teachers. Recommendations are made on how to overcome these barriers and to improve the level of misconduct. A literature study was carried out to gain an understanding of misconduct, and covered the following issues: • What is misconduct? • The causes of misconduct. • An overview of learner misconduct. • The origins of learner misconduct. • Manifestations of learner misconduct in the classroom. • The factors which cause learner misconduct. A qualitative research method was used in this research. The targeted population groups are teenagers in grades 9 and 10 in the Ntoane village. v Interviews were conducted at two schools in the Ntoane village where educators, the school governing bodies and members of the representative council of learners were interviewed. The findings were discussed at length to determine the research objectives. Conclusions were drawn after analysing these findings, and recommendations were formulated. / Education Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

This study deals with the problem of moral development discontinuity prevalent in today's multicultural societies. Black adolescents are confronted by many obstacles in their situatedness in the home, school and society. It has been revealed that the black adolescent in the multicultural situation is exploited, dehumanised and exposed to impersonal situations when he should be offered moral guidance and challenging moral dilemmas in order to develop his moral sense, however he is consequently reduced to an object that is tossed to and fro by his fellow human beings. The black adolescent, it has been shown, needs his fellow human beings, as transmitters of moral values to help him to achieve a moral-self. This study examines the three multicultural situations, the home, the school and the society and shows that morals are not inherited but acquired through mutual contact. The acquisition of morals manifests itself under conditions characterised by respect, modelling, imitation, indoctrination, reward and punishment, conformity, loyalty, communication, exemplification, socialisation, experience and learning as determined by the home, school and society. It was also found that in their acquisition of morals in a multicultural society, black adolescents experience confusion brought about by the cultural differences of their society. \\!hat they previously regarded as the right thing to do in their cultural background receives negative responses in the multicultural situation. It was further found that black adolescents in a multicultural situation are not provided with sufficient opportunities to participate meaningfully in moulding their new moral environment. The multicultural environment is cold and unfriendly, as a result black adolescents are barred from expanding and anchoring themselves in their new situation to face the challenges confronting them with confidence. The empirical research revealed that in the home parents are too busy with their professional upgrading and the positions they hold at work to bother about the moral upbringing of their children. In school teachers emphasise scholastic achievement above moral development. The society does not provide black adolescents with moral role models to imitate. Society has become to technocratic, with devices such as the TV, radio, Internet and video games, to guide black adolescents in their moral intemalisation. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the misconduct of learners in secondary schools in the Ntoane village. It served to determine the • extent to which teenage fall pregnant; • the intensity in which teachers tackle gender violence in schools; • the manner in which the parents’ culture and values are enforced by the teachers. Recommendations are made on how to overcome these barriers and to improve the level of misconduct. A literature study was carried out to gain an understanding of misconduct, and covered the following issues: • What is misconduct? • The causes of misconduct. • An overview of learner misconduct. • The origins of learner misconduct. • Manifestations of learner misconduct in the classroom. • The factors which cause learner misconduct. A qualitative research method was used in this research. The targeted population groups are teenagers in grades 9 and 10 in the Ntoane village. v Interviews were conducted at two schools in the Ntoane village where educators, the school governing bodies and members of the representative council of learners were interviewed. The findings were discussed at length to determine the research objectives. Conclusions were drawn after analysing these findings, and recommendations were formulated. / Education Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

This study deals with the problem of moral development discontinuity prevalent in today's multicultural societies. Black adolescents are confronted by many obstacles in their situatedness in the home, school and society. It has been revealed that the black adolescent in the multicultural situation is exploited, dehumanised and exposed to impersonal situations when he should be offered moral guidance and challenging moral dilemmas in order to develop his moral sense, however he is consequently reduced to an object that is tossed to and fro by his fellow human beings. The black adolescent, it has been shown, needs his fellow human beings, as transmitters of moral values to help him to achieve a moral-self. This study examines the three multicultural situations, the home, the school and the society and shows that morals are not inherited but acquired through mutual contact. The acquisition of morals manifests itself under conditions characterised by respect, modelling, imitation, indoctrination, reward and punishment, conformity, loyalty, communication, exemplification, socialisation, experience and learning as determined by the home, school and society. It was also found that in their acquisition of morals in a multicultural society, black adolescents experience confusion brought about by the cultural differences of their society. \\!hat they previously regarded as the right thing to do in their cultural background receives negative responses in the multicultural situation. It was further found that black adolescents in a multicultural situation are not provided with sufficient opportunities to participate meaningfully in moulding their new moral environment. The multicultural environment is cold and unfriendly, as a result black adolescents are barred from expanding and anchoring themselves in their new situation to face the challenges confronting them with confidence. The empirical research revealed that in the home parents are too busy with their professional upgrading and the positions they hold at work to bother about the moral upbringing of their children. In school teachers emphasise scholastic achievement above moral development. The society does not provide black adolescents with moral role models to imitate. Society has become to technocratic, with devices such as the TV, radio, Internet and video games, to guide black adolescents in their moral intemalisation. / Psychology of Education / D. Ed. (Psychology of Education)