Inaug.-Dis.--Rostock. / Lebenslauf.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin, 1974. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (P.H.D.)--University of Iowa, 1930. / On cover: University of Iowa studies. First series no. 193. Without thesis note. Bibliography: p. 125-126.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1973. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-55) Also available in print.

Masters of Art / Measuring poverty adequately is critical for any type of development project, and yet there are still no clear guidelines as to which approach is best to be used for different circumstances. There is a variety of different ways of measuring and understanding poverty, each with their own advantages and disadvantages, depending on the intended goal. This research explored the theory regarding poverty and poverty measurements, and research various perspectives ranging from income to basic needs, socail exclusion, sustainable livelihoods, and finally to the Human Development Approach. / South Africa

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2006. / Supervisor: Thomas F. Crossley. Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis is a collection of three independent essays that applies microeconometrics techniques to empirically study topics in development and labour economics. The first chapter uses evidence from a natural experiment in Bangladesh, where households were treated to different types of transfer, food grains and cash, at different periods in time, to test the effect of these transfers on household consumption behaviour. Using the fixed effect instrumental variable model, the estimation results show that though in-kind transfers did cause households to consume more grain than they would have chosen under equal-value cash transfers, the impact on calorie consumption and children health status is minimal. Households that received cash were able to reallocate their funds more effectively, and chose to spend their extra income on clothing and children's non-food consumption, while at the same time spending no more on vices. The second chapter investigates the dynamics of living standards in Thailand. Income and earnings processes are first modelled after the statistical Galton-Markov process before being extended to follow a more structural permanent earnings model. Empirical estimations of income and earnings persistence in Thailand employ both constructed pseudo-panel data from Thailand's Labour Force Surveys and the Townsend Thai panel data. Galton-Markov estimates found conditional persistence to be low in Thailand. However, quantile regression estimates find that persistence is low at the bottom of the distribution but high at the top, indicating a divergence in earnings as time passes. A study of the covariance structure of earnings finds that total variation in the earnings process is predominantly driven by moderately persistent transitory components following the AR(1) process. The third chapter attempts to empirically fit the power-law distribution and study the dynamics of inequality, especially at the upper end, of the income and consumption distribution in Thailand. We find that using the popular but incorrect method based on the linear regression approach will lead to researchers drawing a wrong conclusion. Regression estimates of the power-law exponent, a, provide strong evidence of power-law fit in Thailand. However, from the implementation of the superior Clauset et al. method, the evidence in support of the power-law fit is much weaker. Estimates of a for both income and consumption suggest that there is low inequality at the top in Thailand but further inspection finds that there is a high level of persistent between-group inequality between the top and bottom ends of the distribution. In addition, following Battistin et al. (2009), we find weak support for Gibrat's law of proportional random growth as the income-generating process in Thailand.

Thesis (MDF)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: A high savings culture is important for sustainable economic development of any country. Whilst Botswana has one of the highest gross national savings in sub-Saharan Africa, the same cannot be said regarding household savings. Household savings in Botswana have grown at a very slow pace between 2003 and 2012, a worrisome trend given the importance of savings. The main objective of the research assignment was to determine the factors that influence households saving behaviour in Botswana. A probit econometric model was used to find out what factors influence households to choose to save and which ones influence them not to save. Saving behaviour was measured by whether an individual has saved money with a financial institution within the past 12 months. The individual characteristics that were modelled for influence on households saving behaviour were age, income level, education level, gender, formal credit, informal credit, insurance and property ownership. The results indicated that, as suggested by theory and empirical evidence, age, income level and education level have a positive and significant influence on households saving behaviour, whereas, also in line with theory, formal and informal credit and insurance have a negative and significant influence on households saving behaviour. Being female also has a negative but insignificant influence on households saving behaviour. Contrary to expectations, property ownership, which was used as proxy for non-financial assets, has a positive influence on household saving behaviour, although the influence is not significant.

Cette thèse étudie les pensions de réversion en France en mettant l’accent sur la dimension patrimoniale « implicite» des droits à la retraite. En effet, les droits à pensions constituent une composante de la « richesse »des assurés, appréhendée comme une épargne « implicite » encore appelée équivalent patrimonial des droits à la retraite (EPDR). Après avoir analysé, dans le chapitre 1, la grande diversité des règles d’ouverture et de service de la pension de réversion entre les régimes, ainsi que les différentes logiques sous-jacentes des pensions de réversion entre secteur privé et secteur public, nous montrons, dans le chapitre 2, que l’EPDR évalué est plus important, en moyenne, dans les régimes du secteur public en raison des qualifications plus importantes des conjoints défunts dans ces régimes et des conditions de liquidation des retraites plus avantageuses. Par ailleurs,l’inégalité dans la distribution de cette « richesse de pensions » est moindre que celle généralement observée sur le patrimoine réel des ménages, mais se décompose de manière différente selon l’ancien secteur d’activité du conjoint défunt. Aussi, plusieurs facteurs, autres que la pension de réversion, expliqueraient le niveau de l’EPDR. L’analyse, dans le chapitre 3, de l’impact sur l’EPDR de l’augmentation de la durée d’assurance lors des réformes de 1993 et de 2003 montre une réduction significative de l’EPDR des pensionné(e)s dont le conjoint défunt avait validé au moins 60 trimestres de cotisation, mais était touché par la mesure. Enfin, dans le chapitre 4, nous montrons que les dispositifs de réversion permettent en moyenne aux veuves et aux veufs de maintenir leur niveau de vie antérieur au décès de leur conjoint, avec toutefois des nuances selon que le défunt était ancien cadre du privé, ancien non cadre du privé ou ancien fonctionnaire civil d’État. / This thesis examines survivors’ pensions in France by focusing on the implicit patrimonial dimension of pension rights. Indeed, pension rights are a component of the wealth of insured persons, considered as an implicit saving also called Pension wealth (PW). After examining in Chapter 1 the wide heterogeneity of rules governing the openness and service of survivors’ pensions between schemes, as well as the logic underlying survivors’ pensions between the private and public sectors, we show, in Chapter 2, that calculated Pension wealth is higher on average in public sector schemes due to the higher qualifications of the spouses deceased in these schemes and the more favorable retirement benefit conditions. Moreover, inequality in the distribution of Pension wealth is smaller than that generally observed on the real wealth of households, but Pension wealth is distributed differently according to the previous sector of activity of the deceased spouse. On the other hand, several factors, other than the survivor’s pension, would explain the level of Pension wealth. In Chapter 3, we show that the increase in the duration of insurance caused by the 1993 and 2003 reforms has significantly reduced Pension wealth for derived pensioners right whose deceased spouse had validated at least 60 quarters of contribution, but was affected by thoses measures.Finally, in Chapter 4, we show that survivors’ schemes on average allow widows and widowers to maintain their standard of living prior to the death of their spouses, although there are differences depending on whether the deceased was a private sector executive, a non-executive wage earner or a civil servant of the State.