This study is concerned with the relationship between the Iranian Oil Industry and Iranian economy. Oil revenues have been the largest source for financing economic development plans and for obtaining foreign exchange. In this paper, the history of the Iranian oil industry is summarized, and five previously implemented developmental plans are analyzed. Additionally, the impact of oil on some economic sectors and its contribution to GNP is examined. The strong correlation between oil reserves and the economy may bring a problem in the future when oil reserves run out. Iranian economists believe that the economy must be industrialized in order to reduce the economy's reliance on oil. This paper recommends that all the economic sectors, particularly agriculture, should receive careful consideration, even though the national goal is to industrialize the economy.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries / Department: Economics.

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Alma Claire Armstrong. / M.C.P.

本文環繞香港都市的一個邊緣社區，探討深水埗居民的生活。從當地人的角度，研究後工業社會的弱勢居民，怎樣體驗，應對及理解他們的生活情況。透過了解居民的日常生活，本論文旨在探究在社會結構與文化進程的互動下，如何令深水埗成為香港中心的邊緣社區。研究顯示在香港不斷轉變的政治經濟環境下，深水埗的地區性發展、低成本經濟、居民的組合，以及居民的心態和行為，都是構成邊緣社區的重要因素。 / This is an ethnographic study of a marginal neighbourhood of Hong Kong, Sham Shui Po. It focuses on the everyday lives of Hong Kong's urban poor in Sham Shui Po. By taking an insider's point of view, this study examines how underprivileged residents experience, manage and think about their lives in post-industrial urban Hong Kong. This study seeks to understand the social structures and cultural processes that contribute to Sham Shui Po's marginality in the centre of Hong Kong by exploring the lives and livelihoods of underprivileged residents. I show how Sham Shui Po's regional development, low-cost economy, residential composition, as well as the mindset and behaviour of its residents all contribute to making of a marginal neighbourhood in the context of post-industrial Hong Kong. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Christopher Cheng. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 139-155). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Sham Shui Po as a marginal neighbourhood in Hong Kong / Poverty / Marginalisation / Reproduction of poverty / Neighbourhood / Methodology / Fieldwork / Limitations and ethical concerns / Thesis organisation / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- THE SETTING --- p.22 / Central position yet marginal character / Living in a tong⁴ lau⁴ / Geographies of centrality and marginality / Sham Shui Po and the modernisation of Hong Kong / Neighbourhood characteristics / Chapter 1 --- The tong⁴ lau⁴ streets / Chapter 2 --- Street markets and the leftover effects of yesteryears / Chapter 3 --- Low-cost economy and residents / Chapter 4 --- Community service agencies / Sham Shui Po as a unique setting / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- SIX POOR FAMILIES --- p.46 / Introducing six Sham Shui Po families / Case 1 Uncle Leung--An earlier generation Chinese migrant / Case 2 Ms. Tang Yuk-yip--A Mainland welfare mother / Case 3 Uncle Mok--An elderly Hong Kong man / Case 4 Uncle Kwok--A remarried Hong Kong father / Case 5 Patrick Lau--A low-income Hong Kong father / Case 6 Makala Sariwa--A Filipina single parent seeking asylum / Variations in social marginalisation / Hidden in society: Unfulfilled promises, shame and social debt / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- SURVIVAL STRATEGIES --- p.72 / Survival strategies / Strategy 1: Low-cost lifestyle / Strategy 2: Initiatives of a marginal neighbourhood / Strategy 3: Sharing and mutual exchange networks / Strategy 4: Institutional services / The relationship between the different strategies / Surviving in Sham Shui Po / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- POVERTY AS LIVED EXPERIENCE --- p.101 / Becoming poor / Fate and situational determinants of poverty / Being poor / Celebrations / “Being poor may do you some good!“ / Shame, guilt and loss of face / “We aren’t that poor!“ / Aspiring to overcome poverty / Valuing educating / Moving on / Explaining and challenging the notions of inequality / Chapter CHAPTER 6 --- CONCLUSION: A MARGINAL NEIGHBOURHOOD --- p.123 / Chapter 1 --- Historical development / Chapter 2 --- Low-cost economy / Chapter 3 --- The people of Sham Shui Po and the making of a “mixed place“ / Chapter 4 --- Marginal lives, marginal livelihoods / Chapter APPENDIX 1 --- REFLECTIONS ON FIELDWORK --- p.130 / Chapter APPENDIX 2 --- SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MY INFORMANTS --- p.132 / Chapter APPENDIX 3 --- SUPPORT SERVICES & ORGANISATIONS --- p.134 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.149

Human capital has become a key driver of individual employment and economic growth over the past few decades. The Republic of Korea in particular has experienced rapid and sustained economic success due to a marked rise in educated human capital over the past thirty years, but this status has begun to falter as glaring inefficiencies in the South Korean educational system, particularly concerning higher education, have emerged. The high-performing academic curricula at Korea’s higher education institutions fail to reflect the needs of industries, and the subsequent high unemployment rate among university graduates has led to a high incidence of voluntary college leaves of absence (LOAs) aimed at acquiring and reinforcing those skills required by the labor market, suggesting that Korea’s educational progress and the labor market are not well matched. This dissertation is the first study aimed at understanding this voluntary break in college schooling while controlling for self-selection bias using propensity score matching (PSM) estimates. This study contributes to exploring the causal effect of a college LOA on labor market outcomes and heterogeneous effects across family background based on the 2011 Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey (GOMS), the results of which may be useful for policymakers. Distinguishing between engaging in a college LOA to gain skills or experience and engaging in an LOA because of financial difficulties, I find significant positive effects of a college leave of absence on earnings and employment status for college LOAs motivated by employment preparation for both males and females. Considering that there is high financial dependence on parents in South Korea, both for funding one’s education and for covering the monetary costs of taking a college LOA, there is a strong link between family socioeconomic status (SES) and access to extra career-related activities through a college LOA. Families with low SES do not have the same opportunities to participate in college LOAs for employment preparation as do high SES students. Although low SES students have higher heterogeneous effects of a college LOA to prepare for employment, students with low parental income have limited returns to education. The close relationship between parental wealth and the ability to invest in experience and on-the-job training through an LOA may play a significant role in achieving successful labor market outcomes. This means that college LOAs can become a new channel for intergenerational transmission of earnings and even social inequality. The impact of a college LOA due to financial difficulties on monthly income is not statistically significant for both males and females. However, statistically significant negative effect for males are found after controlling for work experience while enrolled in college, implying that student employment during college for male students who take an LOA for financial reasons has a significantly negative effect on wages in the labor market. This could be because the types of jobs that students might work may not be oriented toward labor market preparation and may even impede the development of increased human capital or have negative signaling properties, thus inducing negative labor market payoffs after graduation. Interestingly, even LOAs due to financial difficulties have a positive impact on female employment status. Given that South Korea has high barriers to labor market participation for women in South Korea, a college LOA contributes to a reduction in temporary female workers, indicating that more women are participating in the labor market with stable employment status.

A longitudinal analysis of transactional data for an entire college cohort was mined from administrative student records systems to identify individual student behaviors and establish correlations between individual students’ behaviors and academic outcomes. Conducted at one large urban community college, this study determined curricular peer association behavior between individual students, and also evaluated late registration and course schedule change behaviors. Findings demonstrated a strong correlation between these three behavioral patterns and a lasting influence on academic outcomes, such as: semestrial GPA and cumulative GPA, credit accumulation, persistence and graduation rates. Finding also indicated a correlation among the three behaviors themselves. Furthermore, conducting a longitudinal analysis of individual students made it possible to identify the temporal tipping-points which differentiated at-risk behavior from otherwise benign behavior. The intrinsic factors associated with individual students’ behaviors were followed over a period of thirteen consecutive semesters. Mining Transactional Student-Level Data at the scale achieved in this study, when compared to traditional methods of data collection, provided the precision needed to determine the actual proximity among specific peers, and the identification of registration behavior patterns. The extraction of transactional data from the records of each student in an entire cohort resulted in a method of inquiry immune to the negative effects of student’s non-response or selection bias. Complimenting previous research, this study provides a detailed descriptive analysis of those behaviors not only at the semestrial level, but also cumulatively across consecutive semesters. This study demonstrates that curricular peer association can be measured directly from common, ubiquitous, transactional records. The rates of Peer Association among individual students was very dynamic: While the majority of students had some peer associations while enrolled, in the aggregate two thirds of students had no peer association (were soloists) at some point in time, while more than a quarter of all students were soloists for at least half of their entire enrollment period. Soloists differed from students with peer associations. They were likely to be older, international students, African Americans, transfer students, or those entering fully prepared for college level coursework (no remedial coursework). Peer association was positively correlated, both in the semester in which it occurred and cumulatively, with: GPA, credits earned, and retention or graduation rates. These correlations to academic outcomes varied with the number of peer associations established, and the intensity of peer encounters. The study revealed that nearly a quarter of all students practiced late registration at least once; and more than 10 percent have registered late multiple times during their studies. Nearly three quarters of students made modifications to their course schedule at least once after the semester began. Overall, two fifths of students changed their initial schedule every semester. These behaviors were unrecorded in previous studies that were limited in the evaluation of longitudinal behaviors, used subsets of students and were subject to non-response bias. Late registration and student schedule changes was correlated with lower semestrial and cumulative academic outcomes. Late registration behavior subsequently increased the likelihood of a student being a soloist. When compared to previous studies, the analysis conducted here not only accounted for academic, demographic and financial variables at baseline, but went on to perform updates at key points in time each semester to reflect changes over time. The exhaustive revisiting of the covariates each semester provided enhanced control to the ‘order of time’ influence. All covariates were re-measured each semester allowing to better evaluate the correlation of student behavioral indicators for a given semester, and cumulatively. This enhanced the study’s ability to account for common unobserved variables inherent to academic, demographic and financial attributes that might influence student outcomes correlated with peer association, late registration and schedule changes. This study contributes to the literature by showing that peer association can be evaluated in the setting of an open admission commuter institution, and that peer association has consistent and positive correlation with academic outcomes. It provides new insights regarding the magnitude of late registration and schedule changes, as well as their negative immediate and longitudinal correlation with student outcomes. Further implications to community colleges’ faculty, administrators, researchers and policymakers, as well as future directions for research employing transactional level data are discussed.

Using a sample of firms listed in China's A-share stock market, this study investigates whether the regional institutions and CEO's political connectedness will affect the listed firms' hiring and firing decisions about CEOs, and what are the channels of these effects. I find that, for state-owned enterprises, politically connected CEOs are less likely to be nominated to firms in industries with more specific knowledge, with more competition, cross-listed in Hong Kong stock exchange, and in regions with stronger institutions. However, there is no such pattern for non-SOEs. Second, as a consequence, CEOs' political connectedness of CEOs in SOEs reduces the sensitivity of their turnover to firm performance for SOEs. There is no such political connectedness effect on CEO turnover-performance sensitivity in non-SOEs. Third, the reduction on turnover performance sensitivity is mitigated by stronger institutions. The additional analysis finds evidence partially explaining why the politically connected CEOs are less likely to be dismissed because of their poor performance, that is, SOEs with politically connected CEOs can (1) get more subsidies from the governments when their performance is poor, and (2) tend to hire more employees when the regions in which they locate suffer from severe unemployment problem. / Yuan, Qingbo. / Adviser: T.J. Wong. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: 2123. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-57). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

"October 2004." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 270-288) / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

陸維雲. / 論文(博士)--香港中文大學社會學學部, 1997. / 附參考文獻. / Available also through the Internet via Dissertations & theses @ Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Lu Feiyun. / Lun wen (Bo shi)-- Xianggang Zhong wen da xue she hui xue xue bu, 1997. / Fu can kao wen xian.