The purpose of this dissertation is to address policy makers to change the way they think about increasing obesity rates. So far the discussion revolves around increasing incomes and imposing taxes on high fat food, despite their disputed effectiveness. Most of these studies seem to neglect the...

Women’s empowerment has been identified as a prerequisite for poverty reduction. In addition to driving overall economic growth, women’s empowerment has been found to have beneficial effects on fertility rates, child health and education outcomes, as well as community development. This...

Poverty and inequality persist in many regions of the developing world. This may be due mainly to an ineffective targeting of policies to address the root causes of poverty. Sustainable policy interventions are in need of reliable concepts of poverty and of a thorough understanding of the...