Thesis (M. S.)--Michigan State University. Construction Management Program , 2006. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on June 19, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-150). Also issued in print.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2008. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M.S.M.E.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Open access. "This protocol is the basis of an ongoing pilot study in conjunction with Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Northampton, MA."--P. vii. Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-121).

Thesis (M. Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 192-195). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2009. / Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on Sept. 3, 2009). "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Applied Mathematics, Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, University of Alberta." Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Canterbury, 2008. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 413-421). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1995. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2010. / Title from PDF t.p. Release of full electronic text on OhioLINK has been delayed until July 1, 2011. Includes bibliographical references.

When groups of individuals make choices among several alternatives, the most compelling social outcome is the Condorcet winner, namely the alternative beating all others in a pair-wise contest. Obviously the Condorcet winner cannot be overturned if one sub-group proposes another alternative it happens to favor. However, in some cases, and especially with haphazard voting, there will be no clear unique winner, with the outcome consisting of a triple of pair-wise winners that each beat different subsets of the alternatives (i.e. a “top-cycle”.) We explore the sensitivity of Condorcet winners to various perturbations in the voting process that lead to top-cycles. Surprisingly, variations in the number of votes for each alternative is much less important than consistency in a voter’s view of how alternatives are related. As more and more voter’s preference orderings on alternatives depart from a shared model of the domain, then unique Condorcet outcomes become increasingly unlikely.

This thesis examines economic uncertainty from various sources, and studies the impact of uncertainty on the macroeconomy. In Chapter I, I theoretically investigate uncertainty on asset returns and its role in financial fragility using a stylized model where the level of uncertainty is endogenously chosen by banks. The risk behavior of banks imposes a negative externality on the profitability of other banks because liquidation of risky assets depresses asset prices in the secondary market. Combined with limited liability, the model can give rise to a vicious feedback loop between collective risk-taking behavior in the banking sector and fire sales of assets. The model suggests that ''panics'' over fire sales of assets can initiate banks' perverse risk-taking incentives, and trigger a self-fulfilling financial crisis where banks are taking risky investment, market liquidity is low, and credit risk is high. In Chapter II, I study empirically the role of productivity uncertainty on firms' investment in customer base. I find that similar to the case of physical capital investment, idiosyncratic uncertainty has a significant negative impact on customer base investment. However, different from the case for physical capital investment, firms with low customer base tend to be more sensitive to uncertainty. The empirical analysis suggests an alternative transmission mechanism for uncertainty shocks to the real economy that relies on the interaction between idiosyncratic uncertainty and product market frictions. In Chapter III, I focus on uncertainty about the monetary policy stance of the central bank. I investigate the optimal monetary policy in a theoretical framework where households are uncertain about central bank credibility. Contrary to the binary ''commitment vs. discretion'' commitment setting, the central bank in this model is able to commit to the optimal plan it formulates, but only over some finite (random) horizons due to its temptation to renege on the plan. Given that central bank credibility deteriorates with high inflation rates in the past, the central bank would contemplate on the impact of inflation on its future credibility and social welfare, in addition to the traditional inflation-output tradeoff. The main finding is that the central bank would enhance its credibility directly through a more conservative inflation policy.