This dissertation explores the estimation of endogenous treatment effects in the presence of heterogeneous responses. A Bayesian Nonparametric approach is taken to model the heterogeneity in treatment effects. Specifically, I adopt the Dirichlet Process Mixture (DPM) model to capture the heterogeneity and show that DPM often outperforms Finite Mixture Model (FMM) in providing more flexible function forms and thus better model fit. Rather than fixing the number of components in a mixture model, DPM allows the data and prior knowledge to determine the number of components in the data, thus providing an automatic mechanism for model selection. Two DPM models are presented in this dissertation. The first DPM model is based on a two-equation selection model. A Dirichlet Process (DP) prior is specified on some or all the parameters of the structural equation, and marginal likelihoods are calculated to select the best DPM model. This model is used to study the incentive and selection effects of having prescription drug coverage on total drug expenditures among Medicare beneficiaries. The second DPM model utilizes a three-equation Roy-type framework to model the observed heterogeneity that arises due to the treatment status, while the unobserved heterogeneity is handled by separate DPM models for the treated and untreated outcomes. This Roy-type DPM model is applied to a data set consisting of 33,081 independent individuals from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), and the treatment effects of having private medical insurance on the outpatient expenditures are estimated. Key Words: Treatment Effects, Endogeneity, Heterogeneity, Finite Mixture Model, Dirichlet Process Prior, Dirichlet Process Mixture, Roy-type Modeling, Importance Sampling, Bridge Sampling

Removing just one species from an ecosystem can have radical results. Tony Sinclair's grand-scale biodviersity knockout experiment sets out to determine why.

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The initial part of this M.A. thesis is a fiction describing a travel to Greece; it deals with separation, memories and identity. / The following part is an essay on memories and filiation in Le temps qui m'a manque, by Gabrielle Roy. Four reminiscences will be scrutinized: her mother's house, the satin collar, the medals and the seagulls. The first one is about continuity and identification (the mother's house); the second and the third ones, the satin collar masking the unfinished hem, the medals relating to owing, illustrate a filiation based on want. Lastly, the memory of the seagulls synthesizes the light and the dark sides of the mother-daughter filiation, the daughter leaving her mother (rupture) to fulfill her mother's as well as her own dream of freedom (continuity).

This thesis is a comparative analysis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Reveries du promeneur solitaire and Gabrielle Roy's autobiography (La Detresse et l'Enchantement and Le temps qui m'a manque) and establishes that these two works are testamentary autobiographies, that is, autobiographies written with the awareness of approaching death. We first show that both Rousseau and Roy link their ultimate autobiographical desire to the imminence of their own death. We then show that their autobiographical activity is not only motivated by death, but, moreover, that it allows them in a certain sense to live it already, since what this activity allows them to do is, for them, similar to what they long to do in the afterlife. We suggest, finally, that this activity, which allows them to bequeath an ideal picture of themselves that will survive them, gives them a hold on their immortality.

The idea that Blacks were the prominent force in Southern governments during Reconstruction has been the theme of a number of Southern Whites and others who had sympathy for the South. They have emphasized this view so long that it has almost become an established fact. They have also pounced upon the weaknesses of a number of Black politicians of this period, labeling these men as "not fit to hold political positions." This writer has proven that not all of these men were unqualified as office holders through the life and career of John R. Lynch. The background and accomplishments of Lynch denies the "not fit to hold political positions" idea.Since there is little published on John R. Lynch apart from general histories of other prominent Black leaders of this period, the purpose of this study was to examine the life of John R. Lynch, the impact he had on Reconstruction and selected American historians' views of Lynch and Reconstruction. This writer did this study in hopes that an examination of the life of Lynch might serve to provide a more balanced account of the part played by Black office holders of that period.The research showed that Lynch was a significant political leader in post-Civil War Mississippi and in the United States Congress and that his contemporaries, Black and White, recognized his competence and his honesty. However, this record has remained obscure since no historian, White or Black, with the exception of John Hope Franklin, has selected Lynch as a major topic of historical research. While a number of historians have mentioned Lynch in their writings, none have given him full credit for his accomplishment. White historians such as James Ford Rhodes, John W. Burgess and William A. Dunning omitted him in their justification of White treatment of Blacks during Reconstruction. Black historians proved almost as neglectful in their lack of treatment.

This thesis examines the Royal Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada (Romanow commission), in particular the ways in which the commission deviates from previous public inquiries. The paper surveys the literature on royal commissions to identify common attributes of commissions and explore the dimensions along which public inquiries vary. By identifying the dimensions of variation, it becomes possible to conduct an assessment of the Romanow commission according to each dimension. The thesis is framed by an assessment of each dimension. The product of this analysis is a clear understanding of the ways in which the Romanow commission differs from its predecessors. The thesis identifies three dimensions in which the Romanow commission is unique: it is the first national commission in nearly forty years with a major social policy as its focus; its emphasis on public consultation exceeds recent commissions: and the long-term advocacy role assumed by its chair.

A thematic and formal analysis of Jean-Aubert Loranger's poetic tale "Le Passeur" [1920], and of Gabrielle Roy's novel La Montagne secrete [1962], shows that the construction of the two heroes' respective identity is directly related to the representation of small and large rivers in the two stories. Considering the generic difference between the two texts, these similarities---which are shaped up in a four steps "organizing scheme"---suggest the existence of a real structure in the construction of the modern identity (quebecoise). La Grande traversee, an historical novel about the massive Irish emigration of 1847, narrates the quest of identity of Seamus Doyle, while following the same four steps of this particular movement.

This dissertation examines the attacks on "idolatry" by two prominent nineteenth-century Hindu reformers, Rammohun Roy and Dayananda Sarasvati. Their iconoclastic fervour in the context of Hindu India appears (at face-value) as an anomaly because image-worship is widely perceived as such a prominent feature of that religion. Is their image-rejection to be explained as a borrowing of an Islamic or Protestant attitude? Both men have been referred to as the "Luther of India," but is the label "Protestant" as also applied to their reformed Hinduism appropriate and what is suggested by this expression? The dissertation examines indigenous and foreign elements in the anti-idolatry polemics of both men and argues that explanation by diffusion from non-Indian sources is inadequate whereas explanation by independent invention is in need of nuancing. I explore the hypothesis that metaphysical arguments against images may be considered indigenous to India whereas moral arguments imply borrowing. I argue that although catalyzed by Western influence, nineteenth-century Hindu iconoclasm draws on Indian sources. The British presence in nineteenth-century India acts as the "stress" that triggers the particular diathesis (latent cultural predisposition) that manifests in the Hindu iconoclasm of these two reformers. The fact that the two men had very different backgrounds and degrees of integration with Islamic or British culture and yet both regarded image-worship as the central issue of reform suggests other grounds to explain their iconoclasm than borrowing or diffusion. I explore the formative events in their biographies that describe their individual disenchantment with images. Further, evidence is presented from their writings that indicates that a major concern for both men in the attack on "idolatry" was the disenchantment of religion and culture in the service of the development, unification, and modernization of Hindu India.