Purpose - The analysis of the South Africa property sector to provide an effective inflation hedge has not been researched to the same extent as other more developed countries. In addition, the South African property sector has been excluded from international studies owing to its underdevelopment and inconsistent legislative environment. However, post 2013 the new SA REIT legislation was promulgated putting it on par with its international counterparts. In addition from 2012-2013 the market capitalisation of the sector doubled. The study reviews inflation's relationship with direct and indirect property, and the study compares this relationship to other asset classes available to investors. It further reviews the difference between inflation hedging versus inflation protection, using different measures of inflation hedging and also reviews the various component parts of inflation being expected versus unexpected inflation. Design/methodology/approach - The methodology in this study is adopted from the extensive research previously applied to other more developed markets. Additionally, technical and fundamental analysis of returns, correlations, risks and returns were applied.

Financial advisors have long been considered a part of the financial market through the advice that they offer investors. Behavioural finance has demonstrated that individual investors do not always behave in a rational manner, unlike financial advisors who seem not be prone to the behavioural biases that individuals experience when investment decisions are made. Furthermore, financial advisors have greater access to information, financial analytical tools, as well as better education in financial markets compared to the average individual. Financial advisors are thus better equipped to assist individual investors and provide them with improved investment results. This study investigated the value added by financial advisors in the investment performance of advised individual investors as opposed to non-advised individuals. The study wanted to establish whether financially advised individuals showed greater return on investments than non-advised individuals. A sample of individual investors from a large South African investment house were analysed across the investment categories of an advised investor and a non-advised investor for a period of 10 years from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2014. The data was analysed to draw conclusions on returns, trading behaviour, the risk profile of investors and the reasons for differences identified. The results indicated that there is no statistical difference between the returns generated between advised investors, non-advised investors and the fund invested over the period. There was a statistical difference between the number of trades entered into by advised and non-advised investors, with advised investors making statistically more trades than nonadvised investors. There was no significant difference between the risk profiles of the investors based on qualitative data. The results indicate that there is no significant additional benefit of utilising a financial advisor, after the initial decision of which fund to invest in has been made.

Includes bibliographical references / The core objective of this study is to compile an African Mutual Fund database with a focus on fees charged, expenses borne and fund sizes. Until now, no consolidated database of African Mutual Fund expenses exists. The ancillary goal of the paper is to arrange the dataset in order to perform basic statistical analysis; and to test for the existence or non-existence of a number of internationally established relationships between fund fees, expenses and other variables in an African context. The paper aims to establish both similarities and abnormalities relating to the efficiency of African Mutual Funds in comparison with their international counterparts. No prior work has been produced in the context of African Mutual Funds as the industry has been overlooked, until recently, due to the growing perception of Africa representing the final frontier for investors seeking abnormal returns. The fundamental data utilized in this research paper includes African Mutual Fund Total Expense Ratios, Net Asset Values (NAVs), and mean Total Expense Ratios (TERs) for international mutual funds with no particular geographical limitations. This paper achieves its objective of collating a comprehensive database of African Mutual Fund fees, expenses, size and other variables. Findings include weak evidence confirming the inverse relationship between the level of financial market development and mutual fund expense ratios, the inverse relationship between mean expense ratios per country and the strength of investor protection in the related country, and a positive relationship between fund family size and mean TERs - indicating the presence of scale economies in African Mutual Fund families. All such findings are in line with empirical evidence presented by international studies. Consistent with other exploratory research, the paper includes a number of unexpected findings and observations regarding the general disarray of corporate governance in the African Mutual Fund industry. A foundation for the research of African funds has been built, and is intended to serve as a platform for future research as African financial markets continue to develop.

There is no doubt that the equity market plays a central role in the growth and the sustainability of an economy. Equity and capital markets allow companies to access increased levels of accessibility to capital. Besides the traditional models to access for corporate finance, new opportunities have appeared which offer interesting alternatives. The accumulated wealth from the Islamic community became accessible through new vehicles, built on the Islamic Shariah laws in as far as money and banking is concerned. The Islamic concepts of money and banking, emphasise the relationship between profit and risk as well as responsibilities of institutions and individuals. Many of the guiding principles of corporate finance and banking would not be pegged on religious provisions and doctrines. The Western, conventional economic system holds opposing views to Islamic economics and a key question arises, could principles of Islamic finance feed into a Western economic system and be maintained on a sustainable basis? Proponents and supporters of a Shariah compliant economic system argue that religion is meant to affect every other aspect of life and so would be the economic principles one stands for. As such, remaining committed and observing Islamic law in business and economic activities would be inevitable for all those who take pride in prophesying the Islamic faith. More recently, regulators in South Africa have taken a number of steps to promote Islamic finance in South Africa. The country has one of the more efficient and advanced financial systems, legal and tax frameworks as well as governance structures and regulations on the continent. This gives South Africa a competitive edge and first mover advantage over other African countries in promoting and advancing the Islamic finance industry. The main goal of this mini thesis is the study of what constitutes an Islamic Shariah compliant Private Equity Fund (IPEF). At a secondary and more basic level its viability is considered within a South African context. It also examines the key challenges and potential solutions for such a fund to exist in an economy based largely on Western principles, particularly with reference to the legal frameworks, interest treatment, taxation laws, regulatory and supervisory bodies as well as basic conceptual understandings. Of great attention to the researcher would be the differences between the conventional economic principles that guide equity and finance in South Africa and how Shariah compliance has affected the trade instruments. The author of this thesis has vast experience in the area of Private Equity and Islamic finance as it pertains to this field. In this work, the author builds on his own experience and critically reflects it against the dominant literature in the field. This work does not focus on the risk/return profile or provide any consideration as to the likely performance of such Islamic Private Equity Funds.

Three distinct but interrelated studies with their foundations in recent developments in the South African capital markets are presented in this thesis. The first study presents an empirical analysis of the systemic risk exposures and contributions of 125 financial institutions between 2003 and 2018. Using two popular measures of systemic risk, the marginal expected shortfall (MES) and conditional capital shortfall (SRISK), it is shown that banking institutions are collectively the largest contributors to systemic risk in the financial system. Surprisingly, further analysis reveals that despite the high levels of market concentration and interconnectedness, SRISK increases are not propagated across sectors. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the results provide support for previous empirical findings of the systemic importance of banking institutions. In addition, causality analysis of the relationship between SRISK in the banking sector and the prime lending rate provides new evidence that complements previous theories of systemic risk spillovers into the real economy, specifically through lending activity. Overall, the results illustrate the potential for the use of market based measures in supporting macroprudential oversight and informing policy decisions. The second essay addresses questions related to misconduct contagion and crowding. Crowding is a form of clustering in which the behaviour of market participants leads to congestion on one side of the market, otherwise known as crowded trades. We propose a measure of crowding, based on intraday trade data and use the measure to study changes in the trading environment following allegations of misconduct. Evidence of coincidental and significant changes in crowding and trade volumes is reported in the first set of empirical results, consistent with the notion of information contagion and how firm-specific developments may have significance for other firms. More importantly, the study demonstrates empirically, that crowding increases exposure to adverse spillover effects and deteriorates liquidity in the equity market. We further contributes to the literature, by documenting novel evidence of the asymmetric effects of intraday volatility and trade volume on MES and quoted spreads, respectively, that is dependent on the crowd direction. Relative to buy-crowds, sellcrowds amplify the effect volatility has on MES and reduce the effect trade volume has on quoted spreads. In the third study, the aim is to investigate the implications of domestic crosslistings for the market quality of twenty-six firms that cross-listed between April 2018 and April 2020, following a series of amendments to legislation. Evidence of significant improvements in market quality in the six months after a cross limited, even after adjusting for market quality changes of firms that do not cross-list. Additionally, our results offer no support for the hypothesis that there is a significant difference in market quality changes observed for high and low liquidity firms, in contrast to previous cross-listing studies. Lastly, by consolidating order books across exchanges, it is shown that the price dimension of execution quality can be improved across all venues, even after controlling for liquidity characteristics. We conclude that interoperability between venues can be effective in reducing the cost of trading, and is therefore necessary for a domestic cross-listing to be worthwhile. Collectively, the findings contribute to the ongoing debate around best execution standards and inter-market competition in South Africa's equity market.

This research focuses on the recovery of missing county yield observations within government data, which is used in the ARC-CO program that was authorized in the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills. The recovered missing county values potentially solve issues with the payment process of ARC-CO, which triggers the ARC-CO payments. I examine multiple climate econometric models and the ordinary Kriging to predict the missing yield values. The results show that the ordinary Kriging is more accurate than any of the climate econometric models. After reviewing actual payments of ARC-CO, I find that farmers with irrigated land are underpaid and farmers of dryland are overpaid by the ARC-CO program as established in the 2014 Farm Bill.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / This thesis examined how the Navy's Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (PEO C4I) has performed enterprise risk management (ERM). Based on ERM literature, the study developed an analytical framework to assess PEO C4I's ERM practices against documented ERM best practices, including evaluating a new risk in terms of its impact on existing risks and ensuring risks are managed at the most detailed level possible. The thesis also utilized organizational alignment literature to include organizational alignment principles in the evaluation. Key principles include 1) every employee has the responsibility to manage risk and 2) multiple teams are able to manage a single risk. The resultant analytical framework was applied to PEO C4I and documented for application to other organizations. PEO C4I performed well in the areas of 1) evaluating risks in areas other than the originating program office and 2) providing the framework to elevate risks to leadership. PEO C4I could use improvement in cross-team risk coordination and development of enterprise models to provide context for enterprise risks. Recommended interventions focus on having more functional areas involved in risk mitigation and developing a common enterprise architecture to improve understanding of potential areas of risk. / Civilian, Department of the Navy

This thesis describes some of the practical issues faced by a portfolio manager in analyzing the risk associated with a portfolio of assets. The main tools used are the mean-variance optimization algorithm introduced by Markowitz and multi-factor models for risk decomposition. A sample portfolio designed to track the Russell 1000G stock index is constructed that minimizes tracking error while satisfying constraints on the exposure of the portfolio to particular factors (growth and market capitalization).

<p><strong>This thesis presents a generic framework for project managers and/or other stakeholders to assist them in qualitatively assessing and evaluating project risks. The main structure of this framework is constructed based on risk management area in PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) standard. Additionally, different best practices and methods in the field of risk management and decision making are studied and embedded in the framework. In spite of being theoretical in nature, the framework can contribute to the project risk management area developed by PMBOK, opening the possibility of further research for its verification.</strong></p>

his dissertation provides a review of the relevance of operational risk in the banking industry and attempts to determine whether operational risk management is perceived as a moderating factor on the relationship between critical success factors and competitive advantage in banking industry. A survey was of 399 senior managers of fully licensed banks in Hong Kong. They were asked to indicate the perceived critical success factors, which include operational risk management as one of the variables in the banking industry. In addition, they were also asked to evaluate the relevance of operational risk in their industry and describe their bank's operational risk management practice.