The term ‘consumption experience’ has become ubiquitous in marketing and consumer research circles. In this thesis I question the appropriateness of this canonical term. In its stead I employ the non-dualistic term ‘experiaction’, coined by an ecological psychologist, which points to the functional inseparability of experiencing and actions. I adopt a field-theoretical, phenomenologically-informed, perspective, whilst participating in, analysing, and writing about ten video-recorded research conversations. Likewise I address the various spin-off texts deriving from the initial conversations, such as transcripts and viewing-logs. I show that ‘field’-embedded individuals notice and act on many aspects of their immediate micro-environments, including their own intra-personal goings-on and expressive outputs. Through data analysis I identify five categories of regulable variables that an individual can act on as s/he seeks to regulate his/her sensing, relative to his/her reference value(s). Seen through this cybernetic lens, momentary human being comprises of a cyclical, ongoing process of self-regulation, in which individuals expediently employ and/or modify accessible resources and goings-on, in the service of seeking to actualise their currently-preferred, or expected, states-of-being, and to minimise unwelcome deviations therefrom. This thesis challenges the prevalent notion that when people consume particular products/services these offerings sponsor offering-dedicated experiences - what some people describe as ‘consumption experiences’. The concept of experiaction, in contrast, comprises of an ongoing interaction between a person and his/her micro-environment, in which the individual attends to, and acts on, whichever aspect(s) of his/her 360°-‘inner’-‘outer’-‘field’ become(s) momentarily salient to him/her, within the parameters imposed by his/her currently-sustained reference value(s).

The term ‘consumption experience’ has become ubiquitous in marketing and consumer research circles. In this thesis I question the appropriateness of this canonical term. In its stead I employ the non-dualistic term ‘experiaction’, coined by an ecological psychologist, which points to the functional inseparability of experiencing and actions. I adopt a field-theoretical, phenomenologically-informed, perspective, whilst participating in, analysing, and writing about ten video-recorded research conversations. Likewise I address the various spin-off texts deriving from the initial conversations, such as transcripts and viewing-logs. I show that ‘field’-embedded individuals notice and act on many aspects of their immediate micro-environments, including their own intra-personal goings-on and expressive outputs. Through data analysis I identify five categories of regulable variables that an individual can act on as s/he seeks to regulate his/her sensing, relative to his/her reference value(s). Seen through this cybernetic lens, momentary human being comprises of a cyclical, ongoing process of self-regulation, in which individuals expediently employ and/or modify accessible resources and goings-on, in the service of seeking to actualise their currently-preferred, or expected, states-of-being, and to minimise unwelcome deviations therefrom. This thesis challenges the prevalent notion that when people consume particular products/services these offerings sponsor offering-dedicated experiences - what some people describe as ‘consumption experiences’. The concept of experiaction, in contrast, comprises of an ongoing interaction between a person and his/her micro-environment, in which the individual attends to, and acts on, whichever aspect(s) of his/her 360°-‘inner’-‘outer’-‘field’ become(s) momentarily salient to him/her, within the parameters imposed by his/her currently-sustained reference value(s).

Cette thèse se compose de quatre essais sur l’analyse de la production appliquée, avec un accent mis sur la technologie, la productivité et les coûts fixes. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'identifier les limites de la modélisation du comportement de producteurs, et de proposer certaines améliorations. Dans cette thèse, nous avons comparé les principales spécifications empiriques et les méthodes statistiques qui ont été utilisées dans l’analyse de la production, et souligné leurs implications pour l’estimation des paramètres technologiques. Nous avons étudié les causes et les remèdes au problème d’endogénéité. Cette thèse a également abordé un aspect important de la production : les coûts fixes. Ce travail a contribué à la définition et à la caractérisation des coûts fixes. Nous avons développé des stratégies d’estimation du coût fixe, et montré que le coût fixe a un impact significatif sur la politique de prix, les rendements d’échelle et les exportations. / This thesis consists of four essays on applied production analysis, with a focus on technology, productivity and fixed costs. The aim of this thesis is to identify some limitations of recent contributions to production behavior modeling, and to propose improvements. In this dissertation, I compared different empirical specifications and statistical methods which have often been used in production analysis, and pointed out their implications for estimating technology parameters. I studied the causes and cures of endogeneity problems in the context of production analysis. This thesis also addressed the important but neglected issue of fixed costs. This work defined and characterized the fixed cost, and developed empirical strategies to estimate the fixed cost using the standard production database. Empirical evidence suggests that the fixed cost is significant and has profound impacts on producer’s behavior in terms of price setting, returns to scale and exports.

With an ever-increasing globalising world, trade is of most importance for developing countries to not fall behind and be outcompeted. Export-led growth theory states that one of the key determinants for economic growth is exports. This thesis aims to analyse the causal effects of exports on economic growth in the case of Brazil. Annual data from the World Bank’s database for the years 1990-2018 has been used. The variables included are GDP, exports, gross capital formation, FDI and labour force. This study puts the export-led growth theory in a Vector Error Correction – Granger Causality framework. As opposed to previous scholars’ findings, neither export-led growth nor growth-led export could be determined for Brazil.

This thesis consists of four essays on applied production analysis, with a focus on technology, productivity and fixed costs. The aim of this thesis is to identify some limitations of recent contributions to production behavior modeling, and to propose improvements. In this dissertation, I compared different empirical specifications and statistical methods which have often been used in production analysis, and pointed out their implications for estimating technology parameters. I studied the causes and cures of endogeneity problems in the context of production analysis. This thesis also addressed the important but neglected issue of fixed costs. This work defined and characterized the fixed cost, and developed empirical strategies to estimate the fixed cost using the standard production database. Empirical evidence suggests that the fixed cost is significant and has profound impacts on producer's behavior in terms of price setting, returns to scale and exports.

Magister Economicae - MEcon / Despite its recent remarkable economic growth, Ethiopia remains one of the poorest countries in the world. More than 80 percent of Ethiopians obtain their livelihood from traditional low-productivity agricultural activities. Due to lack of water storage facilities and the erratic nature of rainfalls, most farmers don’t have access to water to produce more than one crop per year and hence there are frequent crop failures due to droughts which have made the country one of the highest food insecure nations and receiver of food aid. It is evident that a comprehensive effort is required to increase crop and agricultural production through different intensification and productivity enhancement mechanisms and reduce rural household’s food insecurity and poverty. In line with this the Government of Ethiopia and different NGO’s have been promoting irrigation technology as a viable option in enhancing farm productivity and efficiency improvements.By integrating field observations, economic theory, and econometric analysis, this study assess the extent to which access to irrigation technology affects the level of technical efficiency in Gorogutu district of Eastern Ethiopia. The analysis is based on primary household-level data collected from 100 randomly selected households in 20010/11 cropping season. To analyze the effect of the technology on technical efficiency, three different Cobb-Douglas type of Stochastic Production Functions were estimated. More so, to explore different socio- economic and institutional determinants of technical efficiency in the study district, an inefficiency effect model was estimated using the one step procedure.The result from the estimated models has shown that farm households in the study area are not technically efficient and there is a chance to increase output by using the technology and mix of production input used by the best farm household (with 20 percent technical inefficiency). In addition, it also showed that households with access to irrigation technology are more technically efficient (84 percent technical efficiency) than those without access to the technology (77 percent technical efficiency). And household’s access to irrigation technology, access to extension service and distance travelled from farm plot to homestead are a significant determinant of technical efficiency in the study area.The study recommended, among other things, as a country that has a huge potential for irrigation development, utilization of this potential and providing irrigation technology to farm households will have a huge impact on the livelihoods of the majority of the poor. Evidently, efforts tailored towards this end would be very essential in militating against the high levels of poverty that is persistent in the communities

Non-fiction film shares a long and relatively uncharted history with the museum. Today, filmmaking is a widespread yet critically neglected area of modern museological practice. This practice-based PhD situates itself within these critical gaps to examine the knowledge producing potential of film archives and film practice at the Manchester Museum. Its primary historical sources are a group of taxidermy objects at the Manchester Museum, an archive of 16mm acetate films at the North West Film Archive and a collection of travel journals at Cheshire Archives and Local Studies. These diverse collections were generated by Maurice Egerton, the 4th Baron of Tatton in Cheshire during his travels in Africa in the first decades of the twentieth century. This thesis brings all three together for the first time since their moment of production. These collections recur throughout the thesis as I ask how film archives can complicate and enrich our understanding of collections and how filmmaking practice might continue to bring new types of knowledge into the museum and archive. Two research films are submitted with and discussed within the thesis. The first, 'Living Worlds at the Manchester Museum', adapts observational methods from visual anthropology to record objects and staff during the re-display of the mammal gallery at the Manchester Museum in 2011. The second, 'Articulating Archives' is the result of a creative collaboration in 2014 with Year 8 secondary school students and the institutions and archives named above. Within the production and analyses of these films I draw on diverse critical sources to suggest that film can illuminate properties of materiality, embodied knowledge and performed engagement that textual accounts fall short of capturing.

The basic concept of the thesis is an analysis of a TV programme "Q" broadcasted by the Czech Television. The programme surveys queer subculture not only in the Czech Republic but also abroad, deals with searching for identities across the genders and disrupts conventions stemming from values of the heteronormative society. The programme title refers directly to the concept of queer, which represents a social phenomenon bringing about gender and sexual diversity and plurality. The thesis looks at the genesis of the programme from its origins, to its production, its broadcasting and finally its cancellation and replacing with another format. The motivation and reasons of the production team and the management for carrying the programme through and including it in the broadcast programming is discussed here, as well as the related decision-making processes and production mechanisms or the way the authors use feminist theories and gender aspects in the programme. The thesis also takes into consideration the long-term development of the programme's ratings. The main working method is qualitative research in the form of semi-structured interviews with the programme's authors. In terms of media production the thesis deals with organizational practices in the programme's production.

Ce travail contribue à la définition des mesures de l'efficacité et de la productivité dans la théorie microéconomique. Il présente des apports théoriques et empiriques. En premier lieu, cette thèse élabore une critique sur certaines mesures classiques de l’efficacité et de la productivité. Il est montré que la mesure directionnelle, sous l'hypothèse de rendements d'échelle constants, pose un certain nombre de problèmes quant à l’évaluation des variations de la productivité. De plus, il est établi que la « slacks-based » et la directionnelle « slack-based » mesures (ou mesures de Färe-Lovell) ne permettent pas de caractériser la technologie de production. Il résulte que ce type de mesure ne permet pas d’évaluer l'efficacité et les variations de productivité. Une approche alternative est proposée qui permet de contourner cette difficulté. Ensuite, cette thèse introduit deux nouveaux indicateurs: un indicateur social de Luenberger-Hicks-Moorsteen et un indicateur de productivité généralisé. Le premier permet d'évaluer l'effet des politiques sur les capabilités au sens d'A. Sen. Il consiste en une transposition des indicateurs de Hicks-Moorsteen en considérant le rôle spécifique d’un sous-vecteur prenant en compte les facteurs sociaux. Le second indicateur généralise les indicateurs standards de productivité. Il permet de retrouver à la fois les indicateurs de Luenberger et le Luenberger Hicks-Moortsteen comme cas spéciaux de cet indicateur généralisé. En considérant la version multiplicative de l’indicateur généralisé, on retrouve comme cas particuliers, les indicateurs de Malmquist et le Hicks-Moorsteen. Enfin, cette thèse présente des applications empiriques qui illustrent la méthodologie. Ces études évaluent et comparent la performance des régions touristiques et plus précisément celle du Languedoc-Roussillon, qui mobilise un cadre d'analyse transfrontalier. / This phd contributes to the definition of efficiency measures and productivity indicator, in the microeconomic theory. It presents theoretical and empirical contributions. Firstly, this phd develops a review on standard measures of efficiency and productivity. It is shown that the directional measure, under the assumption of constant returns to scale, raises some problems in the assessment of productivity changes. Moreover, it is established that the "slacks-based" and directional "slack-based" measures (or Färe-Lovell measures) do not allow to characterize technology. It follows that such measures do not allow to evaluate efficiency and productivity changes. An alternative approach is proposed which overcomes this difficulty. Then, this phd introduces two new indicators: a social Luenberger-Hicks-Moorsteen indicator and a generalized indicator of productivity. The first mesure the impact of publics policies in the line of the capability theory introduce by A. Sen. This indicator consists on a transposition of the Hicks-Moorsteen indicator by considering a sub-vector of social factors. The second indicator generalizes standards productivity indicators. It allows to find the Luenberger and the Luenberger Hicks-Moortsteen as special cases of this general indicator. Considering the multiplicative version of the generalized indicator, on can find the Malmquist and Hicks-Moorsteen indicators, as special cases. Finally, this phd presents some empirical applications to illustrate the methodology. These studies evaluate and compare the performance of the tourist destination, and specifically for the Languedoc-Roussillon, which involves a cross-border analysis framework

The purpose of this thesis is to argue that the core of a monetary economy is a network of triangular contracts between banks, firms, workers and capital goods suppliers. Not only does this network give rise to the creation and valuation of money but it is the organising feature of modern economies, giving rise to both episodes of stability and crises. In constructing this argument I consider both orthodox and heterodox points of view. We analyse equilibrium models of money, and find that while money can exist in sequence economies with frictions, models of this type give no justification for its creation, valuation or holding for any significant duration, either theoretically or experimentally. Models that introduce dated goods and trading frictions to motivate the issue of risk-spreading ‘bundled’ debt are more promising for money creation, although they still cannot explain the the holding and valuation of money. Using the concept of team-production of Alchian and Demsetz and that of ‘hostage-taking’ in contracts owing to Williamson, we demonstrate how the issue of a token of generalised purchasing power from a team-production contract can enhance output and consumption. This conclusion motivates an original monetary theory of production that integrates the insights of Post-Keynesian monetary theory and the triangular contracts of the Circulation Approach and expresses them in a way that shows consistent asset and liability matching through a balance sheet approach. The creation and valuation of money and the determination of interest are embedded within the central processes of this economy. The features of the monetary production economy we analyse are in contrast to the mainstream proposition that the economy as a whole is rendered coherent by the existence of a unique and stable equilibrium determined by the utility-maximisation of households and the profit maximisation of firms. Apart from their inability to describe the economy in aggregate, such models treat money as an afterthought that is in no way core to their conception. We set the triangular contracts within a rigorous stock-flow framework of the type developed by Godley and Lavoie and argue that the shifting of the level of impact of uncertainty and failed expectations induced by money leads to specific patterns of economic disruption. These patterns are independent of the specific behavioural characteristics of households and firms and so are robust to policy changes that leave the institutions of the monetary production economy intact. We briefly assess current monetary policy and alternatives in the light of these findings.