Acknowledgments

I wish to thank my supervisor, Prof. Jean-Louis Arcand, for his invaluable help and guidance throughout the writing of this thesis. I am grateful to Professors Ugo Panizza and Lore Vandewalle for their constructive feedback. I would also like to thank my peers – Julien Christen, Carolina Lemos and Sofia Schroeter – for their helpful comments. Finally, I thank my family – Alex, Irene and Ekene Ochem – and Todd Jelinek for their love and support