Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vii, 143 p. : ill. (some col.), maps (part col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-108).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, August, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 51-53)

Sweden, as a country, has set the goal to achieve a fossil independent vehicle fleet by 2030, which means that Sweden has to reduce its CO2 emissions by 80 percent. Sources argue that the regulations and different implementations that have been done are not enough to reach the 80 percent reduction in time. The purpose of this paper is to analyze consumers’ preferences towards alternative fuel vehicles by estimating the willingness to pay for rental cars in Sweden. The paper also tries to define the explanatory factors for choosing an alternative fuel vehicle. The data used in this thesis was collected through a choice experiment questionnaire that was distributed to employees and students at Luleå University of Technology. The study concludes that respondents have a willingness to pay at approximately SEK 280 extra to rent and use an electric rental car.

En la presente investigación, se realizó un estudio enfocado en la gestión en el área de obligaciones por pagar y la incidencia que causa en el flujo de efectivo dentro de las empresas de transporte urbano masivo en Lima Metropolitana. Desde el marco de la organización económica empresarial, cada empresa cuenta con un área de trabajo el cual tiene funciones y responsabilidades por cumplir para el crecimiento de la misma. Esta tesis está enfocada en el área de obligaciones por pagar, el cual representa pagos provenientes de operaciones realizadas en obtención de mercancías o en la prestación de servicios recibidos. Por lo que, resulta de suma importancia contar con un procedimiento controlado dado que, son los generadores de los egresos de la empresa. In the present investigation, a study focused on management in the area of liabilities payable and the incidence that it causes in the cash flow within the mass urban transport companies in Metropolitan Lima. Within the framework of the business economic organization, each company has a work area which has functions and responsibilities to fulfill for the growth of it. This thesis is focused on the area of obligations by pay, which represents payments from operations carried out in obtaining of merchandise or in the provision of services received. Therefore, it is a sum importance of having a controlled procedure given that they are the generators of the expenses of the company.

The current study investigated the effectiveness of a task clarification meeting and consistent task specific feedback on the completion of customer service tasks by servers at a local sit-down restaurant. The current study also investigated whether customers tip based on social convention (i.e., adjust a tip based on bill percentage according to the quality of customer service received) and whether customer service quality ratings were related to task completion and tip percentage. A list of tasks that should be completed during the course of table-service was developed into a survey through meetings with a restaurant manager. In experiment 1, task completion, tip percentage, and customer service quality data were collected by customers and completed surveys were left on the table as feedback for participants to find. The task clarification meeting and task specific customer feedback increased task completion for two of the three participants, tips were not related to task completion, task completion was moderately and significantly related to customer service quality, and customer service quality was not significantly related to tip percentage. In experiment 2, data were collected by the lead experimenter and completed surveys were vocally and visually reviewed by the experimenter with the server. The task clarification meeting and task specific experimenter feedback increased task completion for all three participants and tips were not related to task completion. Implications of the data as they relate to previous research on feedback and pay-for-performance schedules are discussed.

The legislation relating to equal remuneration claims is an area of law which is nuanced and consequently poorly understood. It has posed an unattainable mountain for many claimants who came before the South African courts. This is as a direct result of the lack of an adequate legal framework providing for same in the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998. The case law recognises two causes of action relating to equal remuneration. The first cause of action is equal remuneration for the same/similar work. The second is equal remuneration for work of equal value. The former is easily understood by both claimants and courts but the latter is poorly understood and poses many difficulties. The aim of this dissertation is fourfold. Firstly, the problems and criticisms regarding equal remuneration claims will be briefly highlighted. Secondly, a comprehensive analysis of the current legal framework will be set out together with the inadequacies. Thirdly, an analysis of international law and the law of the United Kingdom relating to equal remuneration claims will be undertaken. Fourthly, this dissertation will conclude by proposing recommendations to rectify the inadequacies. / Mercantile Law / LL.M. (Labour law)

Recent theoretical literature in social policy argued that climate change posed a new risk to the states and called for transformation from a traditional welfare state to an "eco" state. From a theoretical point of view, different welfare regimes may manage environmental/climate change risks in a similar way to social risks. However, not much has been done to explore the issue empirically. To this end, this paper aims to investigate public attitudes towards environmental and traditional welfare policies given that environmental change is a new social risk the welfare states have to address. Do individuals that care for one area also care for the other? That is, do the preferences in these two policy spheres complement or substitute one another? We test these hypotheses both at the individual- and country-level, using data from 14 countries included in all three waves (1993, 2000, and 2010) of the environmental module in the International Social Survey Programme. Specifically, we investigate the relationship between attitudes towards income redistribution (indicator of support for welfare policy) and willingness to pay for environmental protection (indicator of support for environmental policy). Our findings suggest that attitudes in the two areas are substitutes in the total sample, but that the relationship is very small and only statistically significant in some specifications. When we explore country differentials, we observe clear heterogeneity in the relationship, which can be explained by differences in political and historical contexts across countries.

The issue of gender wage differentials has long been of interest not only to economists, but also to governments and policy makers. In the last few decades, the labour market outcomes for females seem to be improving; however, the gender pay gap persists globally and females still earn significantly less than males. However, labour market discrimination has not received the research attention it deserves in developing countries in general, and in Syria in particular. A wide variety of factors could influence the gender pay gap, such as human capital, job characteristics and social factors. In the Syrian context, social and cultural factors play an important role in determining the position of females in the labour market. However, most previous studies have ignored the effects of social factors on other variables. Therefore, this research investigates the indirect effect of social factors on wages through human capital and job characteristics. This thesis has two main aims: to examine the main determinants of earnings for men and women in Syria, and to investigate the existence and extent of discrimination in the observed gender wage differentials there. To achieve this, two methods were used. Firstly, the Mincerian wage equations were used to analyse gender wage determinants, then discrimination was estimated using Oaxaca’s decomposition. Secondly, General Linear Modelling (GLM) Univariate ANOVA was tested to reveal the main and interaction effects of the factors specified in the theoretical model. The data used in this research came from the Syrian Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2010 conducted by the Government through the Central Bureau of Statistics. The results indicated that human capital variables were vital in explaining individuals’ earnings. Also, job characteristics and social variables explained wages to different degrees. Rates of return to education were, on average, around 5%, with women’s returns being better for higher educational levels. All three groups of variables explained only 17.19% of the earning gap between men and women, leaving 82.81% that could be considered as labour market discrimination. The GLM models revealed that social factors have significant indirect effects on wages as, when adding these indirect effects to the model, the explained variance in wages increased from 35% to 55%. This research makes significant contributions to the field of gender wage differentials and discrimination in Syria. The results of this study could help the Syrian government to develop tailored policies for the Syrian labour market to narrow the gender pay gap as decreasing gender inequality would enhance productivity and foster economic growth.

We present the results of a study designed to measure the impact of interruptive advertising on consumers' willingness to pay for products bearing the advertiser's brand. Subjects participating in a controlled experiment were exposed to ads that diverted their attention from a computer game they were testing. We found that ads significantly lowered subjects' willingness to pay for a good associated with the advertised brand. We did not find conclusive evidence that providing some level of user control over the appearance of ads mitigated the negative impact of ad interruption. Our results contribute to the research on the economic impact of advertising, and introduce a method of measuring actual (as opposed to self-reported) willingness to pay in experimental marketing research.

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