Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / Social entrepreneurship has spread worldwide, as social entrepreneurs seek the solutions to developmental challenges. This is especially true in Nairobi, Kenya, as social entrepreneurship has established itself in the labor market. However, there is limited knowledge regarding the impact of social enterprises in African countries, especially with regards to the labor market. It is for this reason that this study aims at highlighting the impact of social enterprises on the labor market in Nairobi, Kenya. It also provides an outline of the labor market structure in Nairobi. The study employed a mixed methods approach, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, collected concurrently as part of a concurrent triangulation design. Five social enterprises located in Nairobi were involved in the study, and were chosen through snowball sampling. These social enterprises offered direct employment, training programmes or support for beneficiaries to start their own businesses. The research instruments used in this study were as follows; 10 interviews (5 interviews with beneficiaries and 5 with social entrepreneurs), 50 questionnaires distributed to beneficiaries through random sampling, field work observations and a literature review. The results of this study were that social enterprises in Nairobi have a significant impact on the livelihoods of beneficiaries by directly employing them, providing necessary skills for later employment or supporting them to start their own businesses. However, these increases in income are often either inadequate or inconsistent as most beneficiaries are forced to diversify their livelihoods. Social enterprises also fail to reduce the gender wage gap among their beneficiaries. Social enterprises also increase market access among their beneficiaries by providing them with advice and training, as well as, direct access to customers. In the same vein, they increase the level of training of beneficiaries. This helps beneficiaries improve their relations with customers, produce high quality goods, hone their skills, gain employment, gain experience, build a repertoire, earn profits and start businesses. The subject of training also affects the income levels of beneficiaries, as many of those who study entrepreneurship, quality training and customer service earn above minimum wage. Additionally, social enterprises impact formalization among their beneficiaries. However, once beneficiaries leave, they often return to the informal sector. Therefore, the impact on formalization is only significant while beneficiaries are participating in the social enterprise. Social enterprises also influence the attitudes of beneficiaries, creating a more positive outlook on their contribution to the labor market. Likewise, social enterprises shift perceptions about formal qualifications as beneficiaries feel that they can still secure employment by showing their level of experience or body of work. Lastly, social enterprises have limited impact on fair trade ideals as majority of the social enterprises in Nairobi are not knowledgeable about fair trade, and therefore do not aim towards it. For those that do adopt the fair trade model, it is unclear if they have influenced their beneficiaries to actually believe in these ideals or just simply require them to comply with fair trade regulations. In conclusion, the study determined that social enterprises do have significant impact in the labor market structure, increasing livelihoods, improving educational qualifications, and influencing formalization and attitudinal structures in Nairobi. However, social enterprises must also focus on improving their impact with regards to strengthening livelihoods, especially among their female beneficiaries and creating permanent change in formalization among their beneficiaries even after they leave the enterprise. Likewise, social enterprises should consider the importance of fair trade ideals in their daily practice, and the value of imparting these to their beneficiaries.

Abstract This is unique study of import is of the greatest importance, since no studies of import across regions have earlier been performed. Import is a driving force of innovations and therefore most important for a stable growth. This master thesis is about interregional import, as well as the strong spatial concentration of imports in the Swedish system of network. Five hypothesises are presented in the last section of chapter two. The variables to be used in the analysis are then divided into two main groups, before empirically tested in different combinations of regression models. The main conclusion of this thesis is a significant correlation between import, and the two independent variables export and firm R&D, and its result goes in line with the theoretical framework of this thesis, regional specialisation in import and export nodes.

The existing literature finds negative associations between mental illness and labor market outcomes. Using data from the 2007 to 2011 National Health Interview Survey, this study examines the consequences of emotional (depression, anxiety, or other emotional problems) and psychological (ADD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or other mental problems) problems on four aspects of labor market decisions: the probability of participating in the labor force, the likelihood of working full time, the average number of hours worked per week and annual earnings. In addition to analyzing the effects of either having or not having a mental illness, I also test if there is a relationship between the duration of having a mental illness and labor market behaviors. I find evidence to show that having an emotional or psychological problem has an adverse impacts on all four aspects of labor market outcomes. Additionally, the results suggest that unconditional on having a mental illness, duration has statistically significant effects on labor market behaviors, while conditional on having a mental illness, statistical significance is not as prevalent.

This paper shows that criminality causes a significant decrease in the earning potential of individuals. In addition, there is evidence to support that criminality has the same negative effect on earnings regardless of type of sentencing, whether probation or incarceration. Previous studies indicate that ex-convicts do not benefit from in-prison based programs. The purpose of this paper is to identify the short-term earning differentials between offenders and their law-abiding counter parts and offer insight as to how this can affect recidivism. Research shows that recidivists suffer the largest wage differentials, which significantly lowers their employment utility. This reduction of labor market outcomes may conversely promote the utility an individual receives from a life of crime.

This dissertation analyzes the complex relationships between language, immigration, and labor and housing market outcomes. First, I model the urban labor market as segmented by language barriers. The prediction of this segmentation theory is confirmed by Canadian Census data, which allow me to identify a worker's labor market segment by her work language. Second, I explore whether the housing market reflects people's willingness to pay for higher quality social-ethnic interactions. By combining housing transaction data and Census information, I am able to test such a relationship with positive results. Finally, I ask what properties housing price series have if some people have better knowledge of the future immigration/migration flows to a city. Under this setup, the price series become serially correlated and the price volatility varies over time. The model also explains the long-standing price-volume relationship in housing transaction data.

According to several studies immigrants today in general face more difficulties to enter the labor market than before. This also applies to educated immigrants who are the main focus of this thesis. Studies have shown that educated migrants have more difficulties of obtaining an adequate job than ethnic Swedes. Thousands of educated immigrants are forced to work in low skilled occupations to cope with their everyday lives. The reasons behind their lack of success on the Swedish labor market have been blamed on different kinds of obstacles.     This study wants to examine at least some of the obstacles that educated immigrants face on the labor market through some informants own personal reflections and experiences. The study is based on an inside perspective in which the different personal experiences and reflections of the various informants is of great importance.  The study is focused on how five educated immigrants describe their situation on the Swedish labor market. The aim is to investigate the informants 'understanding of the difficulties they have to get a job that matches their skills. It also aims to discuss the structural barriers that respondents relate to when they describe their situation.    The results of the interviews with the informants have been analyzed with the help of central concepts gained from the two sociologists, Erving Goffman and Pierre Bourdieu.    The results of my study have shown through the personal experiences of the informants that the difficulties they face on the labor market can be attributed to their lack of access to valuable social networks and to the various requirement profiles that exist from employers, often with a strong focus on a developed knowledge of the Swedish language. These two obstacles results in that the skilled migrants on the labor market have a relative disadvantage in comparison with ethnic Swedes in the search for the attractive jobs.

<p>People live and work in local markets spatially distinct from one another, yet space is absent from most economic models of the national labor market. Workers choose the markets in which they will participate, but there are costs to mobility. Furthermore, cities are heterogeneous in a number of dimensions, including their local labor market productivity, their housing supply, and their offering of amenities.</p><p>I examine the impact of these spatial considerations on the dynamics of local labor markets and the national market to which they aggregate. First I study the patterns of location choice through a gravity model of migration applied to rich panel data from the U.S. I find that location choices respond to temporal shocks to the labor market, but only after controlling for local heterogeneity. Next, with this result as motivation, I turn to development of a dynamic spatial equilibrium of the national labor market. I make a technical contribution to work in dynamic equilibrium modeling by empirically implementing an island economy model of worker mobility. I quantify the importance of worker mobility costs versus local housing prices for explaining spatial variation in the unemployment rate. I find that the link between the local housing market and the local labor market is important for explaining the spatial dispersion in unemployment, but mobility costs are not. Finally, I further exploit the dynamic equilibrium framework to examine the effect of local housing policy on labor market growth. I find that housing supply regulation is a constraint to growth, but is only binding on cities that are particularly desirable because of their labor market opportunities or amenities. I find that some lightly regulated markets have a contingent of population that has been pushed out of more regulated markets by high housing prices.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis researches the development process of financial certificate in Taiwanese banking. In recent years, financial certificate is an important phenomenon in the workplace of finances. Previous studies focused on the impact of the certification, discuss the formation of financial certificate less. In this article, the view of institutional change regards the banking certificate institution as long duration to consider state, the different period of capital and other actor that have different mechanisms of their interactions in institutional formation process. The research method of this thesis adopt analysis of historical documents and interview to understand the formation of financial certification. Study found that the development of the banking certificate can be divided into three stages: the first stage is incubation. Financial employees in the era of state-owned banking had quasi-public servant status, and rely on the apprenticeship training skills through examinations. In the financial liberalization policy, the new banks joined the market so that employee turnover was high; with college increasing rapidly, in the past through internal training structure had become break down. At the same time, the state proposed the Asia Pacific Financial Center from the traditional conservative financial policy to active, established Taiwan Academy of Banking & Finance (TABF) to handle related business of financial certificate, and created the precedent of certification. The second stage is after that establishment of financial holding companies. The finances boundaries are broken. The banking business is more and more complexity. Securities certificate institution having long been customary in securities industry is further stable. The number of banking certificate increased sharply in this stage. The third stage is Institutionalization. TABF develop new certificate continuously, make kinds of banking business certificated, but employees tend to lukewarm response, examinees turned down sharply. At this time, certification is an institutionalization action to pursuit of legitimacy, rather than respond to real needs. This article affirms the view of new institutionalism, and point out the initial of institutional formation indeed response to new financial development. However, at a later stage the action of institutionalization is only for pursuing legitimacy.

ASTRACT Viet nam labor market is facing with a huge need when the investment from outside and inside the country are rising dramatically. Oversea educated labor was such an important part of the need. However, Vietnamese oversea students will be influenced by a set of factors on their job choice as a long time career. Students in different education background or personality characters may have significant different expectation on job so they will have different attitude to every different job factors. This study researched Vietnamese students in Taiwan as a part of Vietnamese students oversea in term of their attitudes to job factors then explain how job factors influenced their career choice. The research issues were covered from individual factors to job related factors. That may make sense to organizations who want to attract those labor forces. That may be helpful to universities to adjust the education methods and that may help student to understand themselves better which may correct the direction of career orientation studying. The result of this research was satisfied the purpose of study when it found out many factors and conditions of working had influenced on career choice of Vietnamese students in Taiwan.

<p>Abstract</p><p>This is unique study of import is of the greatest importance, since no studies of import</p><p>across regions have earlier been performed. Import is a driving force of innovations and</p><p>therefore most important for a stable growth. This master thesis is about interregional import,</p><p>as well as the strong spatial concentration of imports in the Swedish system of network.</p><p>Five hypothesises are presented in the last section of chapter two. The variables to be used</p><p>in the analysis are then divided into two main groups, before empirically tested in different</p><p>combinations of regression models.</p><p>The main conclusion of this thesis is a significant correlation between import, and the two</p><p>independent variables export and firm R&D, and its result goes in line with the theoretical</p><p>framework of this thesis, regional specialisation in import and export nodes.</p>