This thesis examines the trajectory and role of development within the context of transition from a command to market economy, in a northern region of the Lao PDR. It looks at how the long-term effects of development interventions have contributed to a context of regional integration where the role of foreign investment and the private sector are increasing. In particular, it examines the role of development interventions in the processes of diversification and differentiation that accompany market integration. The village of Ban Jai illustrates this process as a site where despite the failures of development projects a diversification of livelihoods have developed. The implementation of UNDP projects in Ban Jai raises questions regarding the role of international projects and suggests that rather than alleviating poverty they produce a chain of effects that contribute to the tensions that result from structural changes to the village household economy. My analysis examines the tensions produced by such shifts and how villagers negotiate their engagement with the market economy. The experience of women traders illustrates how relations of solidarity are reworked in an attempt to negotiate tensions produced through processes of market integration. As structural shifts take place with increasing economic integration, international agencies also respond in particular ways by shifting strategies. I also ask what changes shifts in strategy introduce at the local level and how this intersects with the way policies are rationalized by local officials and the UNDP. An examination of this trajectory over a period of two decades, suggests that changing strategies in development have involved a shifting role between international development organizations and the private sector. I ask what kind of context this intersection of structural shifts, policy shifts and institutional shifts produces on the ground and how such shifts are negotiated locally.

This study aims at understanding the role of education in promoting disaster preparedness. Strengthening resilience to climate-related hazards is an urgent target of Goal 13 of the Sustainable Development Goals. Preparing for a disaster such as stockpiling of emergency supplies or having a family evacuation plan can substantially minimize loss and damages from natural hazards. However, the levels of household disaster preparedness are often low even in disaster-prone areas. Focusing on determinants of personal disaster preparedness, this paper investigates: (1) pathways through which education enhances preparedness; and (2) the interplay between education and experience in shaping preparedness actions. Data analysis is based on face-to-face surveys of adults aged 15 years [or older] in Thailand (N = 1,310) and the Philippines (N = 889, female only). Controlling for socio-demographic and contextual characteristics, we find that formal education raises the propensity to prepare against disasters. Using the KHB method to further decompose the education effects, we find that the effect of education on disaster preparedness is mainly mediated through social capital and disaster risk perception in Thailand whereas there is no evidence that education is mediated through observable channels in the Philippines. This suggests that the underlying mechanisms explaining the education effects are highly context-specific. Controlling for the interplay between education and disaster experience, we show that education raises disaster preparedness only for those households that have not been affected by a disaster in the past. Education improves abstract reasoning and anticipation skills such that the better educated undertake preventive measures without needing to first experience the harmful event and then learn later. In line with recent efforts of various UN agencies in promoting education for sustainable development, this study provides a solid empirical evidence showing positive externalities of education in disaster risk reduction.

Summary in Chinese. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong. / Bibliography: leaves 108-109.

Law Hing Tung. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 93-97). / ACKNOWLEDGMENT --- p.i / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.vi / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.viii / Chapter CHAPTER 1: --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER 2: --- HISTORICAL BACKGROUND --- p.7 / Chapter 2.1 --- Hong Kong --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2 --- Korea --- p.10 / Chapter 2.3 --- Singapore --- p.12 / Chapter 2.4 --- Taiwan --- p.14 / Chapter CHAPTER 3: --- LITERATURE REVIEWS --- p.17 / Chapter 3.1 --- The Behavior of Real Interest Rate --- p.17 / Chapter 3.2 --- Short Run Real Interest Rate Parity --- p.21 / Chapter 3.3 --- Long Run Real Interest Rate Parity --- p.27 / Chapter CHAPTER 4: --- METHODOLOGY --- p.32 / Chapter 4.1 --- Definition --- p.32 / Chapter 4.2 --- Testing for Unit Roots --- p.34 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- The Dickey-Fuller Unit Root Test --- p.34 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- The Augmented Dickey-Fuller Test --- p.37 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- The Phillips-Perron Test --- p.38 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Testing for Structural Change --- p.40 / Chapter 4.3 --- Tests for the Real Interest Rate Parity (RIRP) --- p.42 / Chapter 4.3.1 --- Tests for the Short-run RIRP --- p.42 / Chapter 4.3.2 --- Tests for the Long-run RIRP --- p.44 / Chapter CHAPTER 5: --- DATA --- p.47 / Chapter CHAPTER 6: --- EMPIRICAL RESULTS --- p.49 / Chapter 6.1 --- Individual Real Interest Rates 一 Descriptive Statistics --- p.49 / Chapter 6.2 --- Stationarity of Real Interest Rates --- p.58 / Chapter 6.2.1 --- Monthly Results --- p.58 / Chapter 6.2.2 --- Quarterly Results --- p.59 / Chapter 6.2.3 --- Unit Root Test with Structural Break --- p.64 / Chapter 6.3 --- Short-run Real Interest Rate Parity --- p.68 / Chapter 6.3.1 --- Monthly Results --- p.68 / Chapter 6.3.2 --- Quarterly Results --- p.71 / Chapter 6.4 --- Long-run Real Interest Rate Parity --- p.71 / Chapter 6.4.1 --- Real Interest Rate Differentials ´ؤ Descriptive Statistics --- p.71 / Chapter 6.4.2 --- Ordinary Least Square Regression Test --- p.78 / Chapter 6.4.3 --- Unit Root Tests for Real Interest Rate Differentials --- p.79 / Chapter CHAPTER 7： --- IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS --- p.89 / Chapter 7.1 --- Implications --- p.89 / Chapter 7.2 --- Conclusions --- p.91 / REFERENCES --- p.93 / APPENDIX --- p.98

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Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are of key strategic importance for Australia. These three nations form the geographic and arguably the political core of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The growing resilience of ASEAN over the last quarter of a century has been a major factor in Australia's secure strategic outlook. In addition, the Indonesia - Malaysia - Singapore triangle lies across the most feasible military approaches to Australia. Hence strategic cohesion in this triangle greatly reduces the prospect of any kind of military threat to Australia.

This thesis examines the emergence of the nation in the British Empire in the process of thinking about empire, economy and biology during the late-Enlightenment and the nineteenth century. A key aspect of this, Knapman argues, was concern over the dialectic of civilization and order as it related to the barbarian and the savage. The notion of the barbarian grounded the European nations in time and therefore constructing a sense of origin and particularism. Equally the savage and the barbarian placed non-European cultures in time. The thesis draws on a range of writers from eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such as Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, David Hume, Thomas Malthus, John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, James Cowles Prichard, Robert Knox and many other lesser-known figures. This is related to an examination of the nation in British representations of Southeast Asia, including colonial officials such as Stamford Raffles, John Crawfurd, and James Brooke who produced encyclopaedic accounts of their experiences in Asia. The thesis argues that while the complex grammar of the British Empire divided the world into spheres of civilisation and barbarism, it retained a special place for barbarians within the core and thus allowed for the naturalisation of nations within the context of an empire of civilizing others.

Traveltime residuals for worldwide seismic stations are calculated. We use P and S waves from earthquakes in SE-Asia at teleseismic and regional distances. The obtained station residuals help to enhance earthquake localisation. Furthermore we calculated regional source dependent station residuals. They show a systematic dependence of the locality of the source. These source dependent residuals reflect heterogenities along the path and can be used for a refinement of earthquake localisation. / Laufzeitresiduen für weltweite seismische Stationen werden berechnet. Wir nutzen P - und S-Wellen von Erdbeben in Südostasien in teleseismischen und regionalen Distanzen. Die so erhaltenen Stationsresiduen helfen, die Lokaliesierung von Erdbeben zu verbessern. Außerdem berechnen wir regional quellabhängige Stationsresiduen. Diese zeigen eine systematische Abhänbgigkeit vom Ort der Quelle. Sie spiegeln Heterogenitäten entlang des Strahlweges wieder und können für eine Verfeinerung der Ersbebenlokaliesierung genutzt werden.

The Mekong River is a crucial shared resource that flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Over 80 million people have traditionally depended on the river to sustain their livelihoods. However, recent large-scale dam projects present serious consequences to the environmental security of the riparian states. In particular, dam construction by upstream countries poses negative socioeconomic and environmental externalities to downstream countries. Such a dynamic has incited regional tension and set a precedent for river management along national lines rather than as a collective good. Given such circumstances, this paper investigates whether the Mekong countries can transition to a cooperative regime that prioritizes the sustainable development of the river. In particular, this paper assesses the feasibility of achieving sustainable river cooperation by (i) analyzing the conditions that enable or hinder river cooperation, and (ii) investigating the extent that bargaining and benefit-sharing strategies can promote the long-term well-being of the river. The paper finds that the lack of credible commitment to the river’s sustainable development at both the regional and domestic levels renders cooperation for Mekong sustainability unlikely at this time.

China has been a popular research subject in the past few decades, while the way to view China has witnessed dramatic changes. This research holds that it is important to systematically study the relationships between China studies and the social, economic and political forces guiding through analyzing the analytical angles selected by scholars have an impact upon how they perceive China. In the China studies communities, the ethnic Chinese scholars¡¦ knowledge of China in Southeast Asian is a noteworthy example: their identities imply diverse degree of Chinese history and cultural inheritance. The variety of ethnic Chinese identities represents the different epistemology of China. This research aims to add to the¡§Epistemology of China Studies¡¨ project by exploring the perspective of ethnic Chinese interpretation of China through Prof. Leo Suryadinata, who perceives China from a distant, yet culturally connected viewpoint. Through the sociology of knowledge approach, we could understand Leo Suryadina¡¦s China interpretation which involves an alien emotion in his academic and literature works, and also from the Southeast Asian Chinese society where he locates in. In Leo Suryadina¡¦s epistemology of China, China is an alien homeland and an object as he interprets it. On the other hand, as Leo Suryadinata¡¦s interpretational tool, China is a concept of ethnic Chinese identities with redefinition.