Declaration

The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This thesis may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. I warrant that this authorisation does not, to the best of my belief, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that my thesis consists of 33,050 words. I can confirm that my thesis was copy edited for conventions of language, spelling and grammar by Eve Richards. 1 Acknowledgements I am very grateful to my supervisor Maitreesh Ghatak and my advisor Greg Fischer for their help and guidance throughout the course of my PhD. Both have been very generous with their time and their advice has often been invaluable. I would also like to thank Sandip Mitra of ISI Kolkata for his help in arranging the field experiment which forms the basis of chapter 3 of this thesis. Similarly, I am greatly indebted to the NGO Mandra Unnayan Samsad who generously facilitate