O processo de urbanização das cidades e a complexidade de seus problemas e questões são apontados como os principais desafios na busca de um desenvolvimento mais sustentável, principalmente ao verificarmos o impacto causado pelos centros urbanos, devido à apropriação inadequada dos recursos naturais, e causando a degradação e contaminação do meio ambiente. A busca da sustentabilidade ambiental urbana, principal tema abordado neste trabalho, é considerada imprescindível para reverter os impactos ambientais associados à urbanização. Considerando este contexto, este trabalho tem como objetivo geral a avaliação da sustentabilidade ambiental urbana da cidade de Nova Hartz, a partir da identificação das principais questões relacionadas à sustentabilidade dos assentamentos humanos, propostas pelas Agendas 21 e Habitat, consideradas como referências para a abordagem dos principais temas urbanos e sua respectiva relação com questões ambientais. As condições de sustentabilidade urbana de Nova Hartz são evidenciadas a partir da aplicação da metodologia da pegada ecológica e indicadores de sustentabilidade ambiental, no contexto das questões urbanas, cujos resultados, verificados a partir de práticas locais, pretendem nortear o início das discussões em relação ao planejamento do desenvolvimento urbano sustentável da cidade de Nova Hartz.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

As seen from cultural history, shape-shifting is a very widespread literary motif, which suggests that it has high inspirational power and general appeal. Shape-shifting has not been critically examined in the detail it merits: it is mostly examined as a part of other theories. Examination of Freud‟s psychological theories and modern literature such as Dracula, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains shows strong connections between the power of this motif and repressed animal instincts – an animal within. This connection usually manifests symbolically rather than as an actual representation of an unearthing of repressed material. There are connections to religious beliefs and a wish to be more than human which raises questions about what is implied by changing into an animal – less than human – shape. The relation between shape-shifting and repression causes an uncanny atmosphere about the motif, something which is used extensively in The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains and Dracula. There is also evidence suggesting the possibility that psychosis and neurosis might manifest as a sort of mental shape-shifting. In literature this can be seen in the were-wolf Lupin in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and the Berserkers of the Norse. Examination of the Boggart and Lupin of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and of the Norse berserkers show that the empowerment of shape-shifting mostly lies in control. All of this considered, and with the lack of critical examination in mind, shape-shifting seems severely underestimated and under-examined.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

This thesis examines the effects of the so-called Hartz IV reform on the German labour market development, with special emphasis on unemployment reduction. To determine the causal link, a variety of tools are used, namely macroeconomic studies, worker flow analysis, surveys and comparison with competing arguments. Preponderance of evidence suggests, that Hartz IV played a significant role in unemployment rate reduction in the period following its implementation. Size of this effects is hard to discern exactly, but an estimate in the range of 1,5-2 percentage points should be quite accurate. Contrary to popular belief, this reduction did not occur to the detriment of general job quality, such as by splitting of old jobs or by dilution of their working hours. Furthermore, the issue of relative poverty is investigated. The thesis concludes that the increase in relative poverty was not caused primarily by Hartz IV, nor is it a good measure of actual living standard. The increase seems to be to a large degree driven by demographic changes, mainly the decreasing size of German households.

In der Dissertation werden die Gesetze zur Reform des Arbeitsmarktes in Deutschland, besser bekannt als Hartz-Reformen, untersucht. Zunächst wird ein Überblick über die wichtigsten Änderungen aus den vier Reform-Paketen gegeben sowie die Effekte, welche man sich davon versprach. Des Weiteren werden zwei grundlegende Reformmaßnahmen, nämlich die Zusammenlegung der Arbeitslosen- und Sozialhilfe (Hartz IV) sowie die Verkürzung der Bezugsdauer der Arbeitslosenversicherungsleistung, analysiert, um deren Auswirkungen auf das individuelle Verhalten und die aggregierte Ökonomie zu evaluieren. Diese Untersuchung geschieht im Rahmen eines Matching-Modells mit optimaler verweildauerabhängiger Suchleistung. Mit Hilfe von Semi-Markov-Methoden, deren Anwendung in der Arbeitsmarkttheorie beschrieben wird, findet schließlich eine Aggregierung statt. Auf diese Weise können die Auswirkungen der Hartz-IV-Reformen auf die Verweildauer in Arbeitslosigkeit, die optimale Suchleistung und die Arbeitslosigkeit quantifiziert werden. / This thesis analyzes the 2001-2006 labor market reforms in Germany. The aim of this work is twofold. First, an overview of the most important reform measures and the intended effects is given. Second, two specific and very fundamental amendments, namely the merging of unemployment assistance and social benefits, as well as changes in the duration of unemployment insurance benefits, are analyzed in detail to evaluate their effects on individuals and the entire economy. Using a matching model with optimal search intensity and Semi-Markov methods, the effects of these two amendments on the duration of unemployment, optimal search intensity and unemployment are analyzed.

My research seeks to understand the behaviour of workers and firms and how their decisions affect labour market outcomes. My PhD dissertation consists of three separate Chapters that use detailed historical, census and administrative data to gain insights into the mechanisms at play when incentives for production and location decisions change. Chapter 1 asks whether financial incentives can induce inventors to innovate more. I exploit a large reduction in the patent fee in the United Kingdom in 1884 to distinguish between its effect on increased efforts to invent, and a decrease in patent quality due to a lower quality threshold. For this analysis I create a detailed new dataset of 54,000 British inventors with renewal information for each patent. In the longer run high-quality patenting increases by over 100 percent, and the share of new patents due to greater effort accounts for three quarters of the pre-reform share of high-quality patents. To test for the presence of credit constraints I generate two wealth proxies from inventor names and addresses, and find a larger innovation response for inventors with lower wealth. These results indicate efficiency gains from decreasing the cost of inventing and in addition, from relaxing credit constraints. In Chapter 2 we assess the effects of changes in ethnic neighbourhood composition in England and Wales. A change in social housing allocations in the 1990s serves as instrument for changes in the local ethnic composition. For the analysis we create a dataset of highly disaggregated census geographies for 1991-2011. The results imply that an exogenous increase in social housing minority share by 10 percentage points raises the minority share in private housing by 1.2 percentage points initially. This sorting effect is larger for privately rented than for privately owned housing. We further show that an increase in the minority share leads to higher local population growth and a small decrease in house prices in the longer run. Chapter 3 proposes a new approach for analysing responses to comprehensive labour market reforms. Using detailed micro data we evaluate the German Hartz reforms that aimed at reducing unemployment. The timing of the reforms affects the model parameters, which are estimated using matched data on 430,000 workers in 340,000 firms. Contrary to previous findings, our analysis shows that the reforms marginally reduced unemployment at the cost of a pronounced decline in wages. Low-skilled workers suffered the largest wage losses. Furthermore, we decompose the contribution of each reform wave on employment and wages, and document a structural shift in the factors that govern overall wage dispersion.

This thesis examines the nature of the relationship between migrants’ ideology and the dominant political culture in their host country, exploring what happened to German liberal migrant politicians in 19th century Wisconsin and Queensland. It does this by using Louis Hartz’s fragment theory which he developed in The Liberal Tradition in America and The Founding of New Societies. Hartz argues that the crucial factor in the political development of the new settler new societies was the migration of a fragment of European society bound by a common Weltanschauung or world view. In the United States, Hartz identifies the relevant group as the Puritans who fled Britain in the 17th century, and whose Calvinism he links to Lockean liberalism. Hartz and his collaborator Richard Rosecrance, who wrote the Australian section of New Societies, argue Australia was shaped by the lower-middle and working-class migrant fragment, inspired by political reform movement in England, and who arrived in the first half of the 19th century armed with a utilitarian-radical ideology. With no strong opposition these fragments congeal without reference to Europe and stagnate into monolithic political cultures where all the disparate elements merge into a broad - although at times quarrelsome – national consensus. According to Hartz, this consensus is re-enforced by the individualist capitalism of The American Dream or the radical collectivism of The Australian Legend – which become the foundation of the two nations’ respective national character. Hartz acknowledges that the new migrant from Europe is a constant threat to this political-cultural status quo. However, he says by “consciously articulating the fragment ethic”, the new migrant is absorbed, keeping in check the ideological challenges inherent in migration. This thesis argues that, in the case of the German liberals, who left their homeland in the 1840s and 1850s, the process was more complex than the one Hartz describes. In Wisconsin, German liberalism was most aligned to Jeffersonian democracy and the Germans either rejected outright or never fully embraced other strands within the political consensus such as Puritan moralism, Jacksonian democracy and Hamiltonian federalism. In Queensland their German liberalism was most compatible with utilitarianism and the Germans rejected most elements of classical liberalism, the evangelical element within social liberalism and the working-class radicalism of the Labor Party. They accepted Jeffersonian democracy and utilitarianism in their respective new homes because they were closest to their core German liberal principles of secularism, the primacy of the rule of law, romanticism, opposition to the aristocracy, and an aversion to rampant capitalism. Most important, however, were their attitudes towards the Staat and Volk. The Staat was both as a potential enemy and also a vital ally in liberal reform and the Volk were seen as potential colleagues in a liberal state but also as a danger to stability. Over the course of their careers they ideologically realigned, leaving parties and factions whenever challenged and using their German liberal ideals as their political reference point.

This thesis examines the nature of the relationship between migrants’ ideology and the dominant political culture in their host country, exploring what happened to German liberal migrant politicians in 19th century Wisconsin and Queensland. It does this by using Louis Hartz’s fragment theory which he developed in The Liberal Tradition in America and The Founding of New Societies. Hartz argues that the crucial factor in the political development of the new settler new societies was the migration of a fragment of European society bound by a common Weltanschauung or world view. In the United States, Hartz identifies the relevant group as the Puritans who fled Britain in the 17th century, and whose Calvinism he links to Lockean liberalism. Hartz and his collaborator Richard Rosecrance, who wrote the Australian section of New Societies, argue Australia was shaped by the lower-middle and working-class migrant fragment, inspired by political reform movement in England, and who arrived in the first half of the 19th century armed with a utilitarian-radical ideology. With no strong opposition these fragments congeal without reference to Europe and stagnate into monolithic political cultures where all the disparate elements merge into a broad - although at times quarrelsome – national consensus. According to Hartz, this consensus is re-enforced by the individualist capitalism of The American Dream or the radical collectivism of The Australian Legend – which become the foundation of the two nations’ respective national character. Hartz acknowledges that the new migrant from Europe is a constant threat to this political-cultural status quo. However, he says by “consciously articulating the fragment ethic”, the new migrant is absorbed, keeping in check the ideological challenges inherent in migration. This thesis argues that, in the case of the German liberals, who left their homeland in the 1840s and 1850s, the process was more complex than the one Hartz describes. In Wisconsin, German liberalism was most aligned to Jeffersonian democracy and the Germans either rejected outright or never fully embraced other strands within the political consensus such as Puritan moralism, Jacksonian democracy and Hamiltonian federalism. In Queensland their German liberalism was most compatible with utilitarianism and the Germans rejected most elements of classical liberalism, the evangelical element within social liberalism and the working-class radicalism of the Labor Party. They accepted Jeffersonian democracy and utilitarianism in their respective new homes because they were closest to their core German liberal principles of secularism, the primacy of the rule of law, romanticism, opposition to the aristocracy, and an aversion to rampant capitalism. Most important, however, were their attitudes towards the Staat and Volk. The Staat was both as a potential enemy and also a vital ally in liberal reform and the Volk were seen as potential colleagues in a liberal state but also as a danger to stability. Over the course of their careers they ideologically realigned, leaving parties and factions whenever challenged and using their German liberal ideals as their political reference point.

This thesis examines the nature of the relationship between migrants’ ideology and the dominant political culture in their host country, exploring what happened to German liberal migrant politicians in 19th century Wisconsin and Queensland. It does this by using Louis Hartz’s fragment theory which he developed in The Liberal Tradition in America and The Founding of New Societies. Hartz argues that the crucial factor in the political development of the new settler new societies was the migration of a fragment of European society bound by a common Weltanschauung or world view. In the United States, Hartz identifies the relevant group as the Puritans who fled Britain in the 17th century, and whose Calvinism he links to Lockean liberalism. Hartz and his collaborator Richard Rosecrance, who wrote the Australian section of New Societies, argue Australia was shaped by the lower-middle and working-class migrant fragment, inspired by political reform movement in England, and who arrived in the first half of the 19th century armed with a utilitarian-radical ideology. With no strong opposition these fragments congeal without reference to Europe and stagnate into monolithic political cultures where all the disparate elements merge into a broad - although at times quarrelsome – national consensus. According to Hartz, this consensus is re-enforced by the individualist capitalism of The American Dream or the radical collectivism of The Australian Legend – which become the foundation of the two nations’ respective national character. Hartz acknowledges that the new migrant from Europe is a constant threat to this political-cultural status quo. However, he says by “consciously articulating the fragment ethic”, the new migrant is absorbed, keeping in check the ideological challenges inherent in migration. This thesis argues that, in the case of the German liberals, who left their homeland in the 1840s and 1850s, the process was more complex than the one Hartz describes. In Wisconsin, German liberalism was most aligned to Jeffersonian democracy and the Germans either rejected outright or never fully embraced other strands within the political consensus such as Puritan moralism, Jacksonian democracy and Hamiltonian federalism. In Queensland their German liberalism was most compatible with utilitarianism and the Germans rejected most elements of classical liberalism, the evangelical element within social liberalism and the working-class radicalism of the Labor Party. They accepted Jeffersonian democracy and utilitarianism in their respective new homes because they were closest to their core German liberal principles of secularism, the primacy of the rule of law, romanticism, opposition to the aristocracy, and an aversion to rampant capitalism. Most important, however, were their attitudes towards the Staat and Volk. The Staat was both as a potential enemy and also a vital ally in liberal reform and the Volk were seen as potential colleagues in a liberal state but also as a danger to stability. Over the course of their careers they ideologically realigned, leaving parties and factions whenever challenged and using their German liberal ideals as their political reference point.