This research develops a microeconomic theory of the financial firm that is empirically implementable. Financial firms such as banks and savings and loan associations produce intermediation services between borrowers and lenders. User costs per unit of service can be derived for all goods. For financial services, these include the effects of reserve requirements, capital gains or losses, deposit insurance, interest rates, and service charges. Items generating more expenditure than revenue for the firm have positive user costs, and are inputs. Those with negative user costs are outputs. Comparative statics on profits, supplies of output and demands for input are derived for interest rates and monetary regulations. Data comprise pooled time series and cross section data for eighteen banks in New York and New Jersey for the years 1973-1978. User cost and quantity data are constructed for loans, demand deposits, time deposits, cash, labour and materials. The first two are outputs and the last four inputs. A specification is derived for the variable profit function, and the testing of regularity conditions such as monotonicity and convexity described. A test for the existence of a money supply, as a subset of financial goods is developed. The test imposes no prior restriction on the form of the money supply. The empirical results indicate that convexity and monotonicity obtain, at the geometric mean of the sample. Elasticities of supply for outputs are positive, but less than unity. Elasticities of demand are negative. Bank response to any monetary policy action can be calculated, and some experiments are reported on. An alternate model is derived to permit imperfect competition in the financial firm market for outputs and inputs. The model is shown to yield testable predictions, and price taking behavior for these banks is ruled out. The results indicate that it is possible to develop and implement a model of financial firm behavior. Such a model is required to ensure accuracy in the effectiveness of monetary policy. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to explore how members exit totalistic organizations. Existing organizational communication research has treated employee membership in an employment institution as the universal organizational relationship. This study argues that certain organizational relationships are best understood not by the presence or absence of pay, however, but in relation to the extent of organizational reach into the member's life outside the organization. This study advances the notion that such totalistic organizations share important characteristics including value-based memberships, centrality of organizational values to the member's life, the involvement of primary relationships, and a requirement of organizational fealty. This study advances the study of organizational exit within this totalistic context. A microstoria narrative analysis was used to examine the exit narratives of members of both paid and unpaid totalistic organizations (police officers and firefighters: N = 50, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: N = 50) to gain a better understanding of exit from totalistic organizations. The findings of this study suggest several contributions to the study of organizational communication and exit. First, the findings of this study expand our definition of organizational memberships beyond current literature, which defines memberships based on payment. Second, consideration of totalistic exit challenges existing models of role/vocational socialization, suggesting that foundational values can originate from an organizational source. Third, the process of exit revealed by the narratives of this study suggests a view of exit that was unlike both current phasic models or considerations of volunteer exit. The process of exiting a totalistic organization was less linear and more prolonged than exit describe by existing literature, and was marked by deep personal doubts and fears. Finally, members of totalistic organizations described active concealment of both their decisions to exit, and the doubts about both the organization and the self that contribute to exit, suggesting a communicative pattern during the exit process that diverges from the expected announcement/exit phase of Jablin's (2001) model.

The specific aim of the survey was twofold, first to find out what educational institutions are "available" in Cape Town for Africans (whether they are numerically adequate, are sufficiently well suited and equipped, and are strategically located in proximity to pupils' homes; and how the social circumstances or the pupils and of the staffs affect school training); second; to find out to what extent the existing schools are "utilized'' by the Africans. In addition, the survey also considers the broader question of school education for Africans, which has become at present one of the major problems of the whole country together with the social and political re-organization of the Bantu community. To re-organize socially is first of all to re-organize mentally, a task which is proper of education in general and of school education in particular.

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As a result of increasing college costs and diminishing organizational support, poor and ethnic-minority students are finding it increasingly difficult to attend large public research universities. To investigate the potential relationship that exists between market-oriented practices in higher education and access for poor and ethnic-minority students, the Institutional Logics Perspective is employed as a theoretical frame to contextualize the precursors, content, and consequences of the market logic in the public higher education system. Hypotheses drawing out linkages between the mechanisms of the market logic and decreased student access are offered. A fixed-effect model is then constructed to evaluate proposed connections between university practices undergirded by the logic and access for both poor and ethnic-minority student populations. Results are discussed and the ramifications of the market logic for the future of accessible public higher education are explored in the context of social justice. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / abstract / China Development Studies / Master / Master of Arts

Today there is no agreement as to how developing countries can achieve sustained economic growth and wellbeing. Over the last 50 years many suggested policy panaceas have failed. Policy makers are now faced with growing economic challenges and confusing policy prescriptions. Against this background, the re-emerging study of institutions now offers new promise in explaining why development has so far eluded so many countries, and consequently, what can be done about it. This thesis deals with questions which to date have only received partial or cursory attention. The study asks: What really are institutions? Why do they matter? What can we learn about them that can help us deal with the current challenging development debacle? This study starts by reaffirming what institutions are. It shows that institutions are inescapable influencers of the way we relate to each other, and the effects we have on our societies’ economic development. Yet so far, scholars and policy makers have not yet fully taken up the opportunity of identifying and utilising the insights that the institutional perspective offers. This study deliberately picks up the challenge. Using the experience of the Uganda coffee sector, it shows that the nature of institutions can be better understood, and their role and impact, better addressed towards pressing development questions. The study shows that by integrating old and new institutionalist perspectives and theories of institutions and institutional change, it is possible to make much more progress towards understanding, explaining and addressing the role and influence of institutions in the development of an economic sector. In so doing this study goes beyond existing works on definition, taxonomy and explanation of institutional influence. It raises new insights to be considered as we face today’s contemporary development challenges. This research should therefore be of interest and value to researchers, students, policy makers and entrepreneurs concerned with economic development and the factors that shape and influence it in practice.

This thesis examines the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (UMP) as a political party and an organisation through the examination of two party federations: Hauts-de-Seine and Yvelines. This is undertaken via a study of the groups within the UMP, as well as by developing a perspective on the history of conflict within the Centre-Right in the French Fifth Republic, retracing the formation of the UMP and conducting questionnaires and interviews with party activists in Hauts-de-Seine and Yvelines. The empirical fieldwork is examined within the broad framework of the party system literature. The UMP is a party that has formed out of a variety of political currents and traditions creating an internally diverse party, and this is examined through a look at the political families in the party and the party federations of Hauts-de-Seine and Yvelines to get a view of the party at the point of time of the fieldwork. The thesis examines the party in these two federations through the eyes of the party activists in order to understand the party at the base. This seeks to study what the party is on the ground in these federations: what groups exist within the party (both in terms of the former parties and political currents), what sort of organisation the UMP is, how the activists relate to the organisation, as well as the relationship between the lower levels of the party and the national party. This thesis seeks to answer the question: What sort of party is the UMP as an organisation in these federations, in regards to institutions and what the party sees as its main goals, and what role does internal diversity have within the party?

Thesis advisor: Ana Maria Martinez Aleman / Higher education has experienced an unprecedented growth in the number of Latino/Hispanic students. Unfortunately as the literature has revealed, many institutions have not had success in serving this population. By all accounts Hispanics are the youngest and fastest growing population in the United States enrolling in college. However, they have the lowest educational attainment levels in the nation. New population growth is beginning to sprawl into geographic areas unfamiliar with serving this minority population. In just a few short years demographic changes are forecast to forever impact the landscape of colleges across the country: Hispanic-serving institutions will be at the forefront of American higher education. At present, colleges are not sufficiently prepared to meet the needs of its future students. The purpose of this case study was to provide a detailed analysis of a single case, Miami Dade College West Campus. Through an information-rich case study, this researcher set out to examine how Miami Dade College West Campus could serve as a new model for effective Hispanic-serving institutions. Sources of evidence used for the analysis included interviews with members of the dominant coalition involved in planning the campus and document analysis with a particular focus on the strategic planning process. The findings of the case study identified certain themes as central to Miami Dade College West Campus’s effectiveness in serving Hispanic students. First, findings indicated a predominant student-centered institutional culture. Second, the campus developed a strong campus-community interdependence that mutually supported growth and success. Findings also suggested a comprehensive approach to racial and ethnic diversity across campus. Finally, as is supported in the literature, institutional leadership was an integral component of the institution’s ability to effectively educate Latino students. The implications of this research can provide guidance and support to institutions as national demographic shifts will demand the need for quality, focused information on Hispanic-serving institutions. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.