This dissertation explored the efficacy of the new Basel III banking standards in SACU, grounded on the conjecture that they are not reflective of economies of SACU, but are merely an intensification of Basel II, rather than a substantial break with it. Firstly, loans and assets were tested for causality, since Basel III believes growth in these variables led to securitization. The leverage ratio has been introduced in Basel III as an anti-cyclical buffer. The OLS technique was employed to test for its significance in determining growth in bank assets. SACU feels the impact of debt, with credit is marginally treated in Basel III and is not introspective of the realities of its economies. ANOVA tests using debt, credit and GDP were done to determine a better method of addressing cyclicality. The leverage ratio was insignificant in Namibia, with debt and credit having momentous impacts on GDP in SACU. / Economics / M. Com. (Economics)

The question in the study is to what extent the Swedish Real estate sector index acts as a follower of larger and broader stock indexes, and to what extent the index follows the asset values owned by the real estate companies in the asset market? The study is interesting for those trying to understand the development of share values in the Swedish real estate market as well as for those interesting in the “efficient market hypothesis”. The study makes an econometric analysis of the relationship between OMXS30, OMXS Real Estate PI, and the asset value of properties owned by Swedish real estate companies. Indexes are compared with Vector Autoregression (VAR) lag models, tested for dependence of GDP, the repo rent, and inflation. A Granger causality test is also performed. Despite discussed problems with reliability of some tests, the study finds that OMXS30 Granger cause OMX Real Estate PI. The study also finds that, during the period studied, OMXS30 and OMX Real Estate PI develop differently in the initial period but later form a similar path of performance. The asset values of the companies in the real estate market are more strongly correlated with OMXS30 than with their own sector index, OMXS Real Estate PI. No significant effects are found from GDP, the repo rent or inflation on OMXS30 or OMXS Real Estate PI. This may be seen as surprising but follows results from earlier studies.

論文摘要 本論文由兩篇獨立的文章所構成，第一篇文章從個體角度出發，探討臺灣產業出口與成長之間的關聯性；第二篇文章則以總體的角度，分析世界各主要國家經濟成長的型態(包括出口偏向型的成長與進口偏向型的成長)對該國貿易條件的影響。 長久以來，出口與產出之間的相互影響向來是廣受重視的議題。在國際經濟領域中，多數研究均專注於兩者間理論之建立，關於實證方面的探討並不多見，而個體角度來探討產業出口與成長之間的文獻更是稀少，以臺灣產業出口與成長之間因果關係為對象的研究則付之闕如。臺灣的經濟成就向來被歸功於出口擴張政策的成功，但出口導向的影響範圍究竟擴及多少產業的效果仍不明朗，因此第一篇文章關心的重點，在於探討對我國的產業而言出口擴張是否是個有效的政策？而究竟出口導向和產出導向哪一種政策的效果較好，也是本文所關心的目標。 第二篇文章討論成長型態對貿易條件的影響。由於出口偏向型的成長會使本國願意以更多出口財來換取進口財，將會使本國出口財的國際價格相對下降，進而惡化本國的貿易條件，改善外國的貿易條件；反之，在進口偏向型成長的情況下，出口財的減少則會使本國貿易條件改善，外國貿易條件惡化。是以一國的經濟成長對該國貿易條件的影響，將取決於其生產可能曲線外移的方向。本文嘗試以八個工業化國家和七個開發中國家為對象，在加入成長偏向政策、物價、匯率、所得移轉、對外投資、貿易平衡、貿易開放程度等因素的考慮下，來驗證成長型態對其貿易條件的影響效果是否符合理論的規範。 / The purpose of first paper is to investigate the empirical relationships between exports and domestic production in 22 Taiwan main industries, using time series data for the period 1982:01~2002:07. Different from the previous literatures, this paper examines the relations by taking into account industrial data because we are wondering whether the causal links between exports and outputs still sustain in individual industry, and either export promotion or production-led policies are more effective for industrial production. Hence, three related topics will be discussed: to recognize the incidence of export promotion policy in Taiwan industries, to explore either export promotion or production-led policies is more effective for industrial production, and to detect whether all exportation-oriented industries would simultaneously support export promotion hypothesis. The findings of the econometric analysis employing Granger causality test do not have enough evidence to support that the proportion of exports to production is a necessary condition for generating export promotion. Nevertheless, this study suggests that production makes great influence on exports in Taiwan individual industry but the effects of exports on production is not so prevailing as we thought before. Therefore, the influence of production to exports in Taiwan industry is more prevalent than that of exports to outputs. The purpose of the second paper is to examine the impacts of growth types on terms of trade by making a comparison between 8 industrial countries and 7 developing countries (involving 3 NICs countries). This paper finds that the theories seems not be supported because evidence shows the occurrence of positive effects of export-biased growth to terms of trade are more prevalent than negative ones. Moreover, the empirical results of negative incidence shown by import-biased growth come into conflict with theories, and the impacts of import-biased growth on terms of trade are indefinite. In addition, most results reveals that export-biased growth and import-biased growth policies in industrial countries are invalid, and most results in NICs and developing countries are ambiguous while export-biased growth or import-biased growth policies are adopted. Furthermore, the empirical results reveal that income transferring have great or opposite influence in NICs and developing countries, and trade openness is advantageous to NICs and developing countries but is disadvantageous to developed ones.

台灣房地產景氣動向季報的發佈不但為台灣房地產市場該季景氣狀況提供一客觀參考依據，且對未來房地產市場景氣走向進行預測分析，提供房地產景氣相關資訊予社會各界參考。在對未來房地產景氣進行預測方面，是採用領先指標作為一參考標的，雖然領先指標就其特性而言為一預測未來景氣動向的參考資訊，但卻無法明確指出其所預測的期間為多長，本研究所欲探討的部分即在於使用房地產景氣綜合指標之領先指標於預測房地產景氣上可以預測幾季之後的房地產景氣狀況，並探討房地產景氣預測的準確度。另外對廠商景氣預測的部分進行一致性的檢視，再從而比較廠商景氣認知與同時、領先指標之間的關係。希望藉此能釐清房地產景氣季報內的訊息內涵。 本研究透過因果關係檢定，找出領先指標領先同時指標三季的關係，確定可以透過領先指標來預測三季之後的景氣變化情形。再利用平均絕對百分比誤差分析使用領先指標作為預測工具的準確度，經過計算求得平均絕對百分比誤差為4.57%，可以看出使用領先指標作為預測工具相當合適。在廠商本身預測景氣動向上，本研究發現廠商預期符合調適預期理論，且對未來的預期有較為樂觀的趨勢；經過本研究統計整理發現廠商對房地產景氣變動的認知與同時指標的變動之間的一致性並不理想，此有可能是因為市場上各項房地產資訊充斥，廠商並不全然以同時指標的變動來判斷房地產景氣的變動。惟經過前後期的比較，可以發現一致性的上升與不一致性的下降，表示兩者之間認知的一致性有逐漸提升的趨勢。 / The atmosphere of the real estate industry in Taiwan was upswing gradually in the past few decades, and its market information was definitely occupied an significant role and many people started to put their focus on it. In fact, the industry forecast which can be found from those seasonal report was a prediction only that is not accurate, i.e. those projections were based on the current market information only. Therefore, how to interpret and digest the number from those reports is the crucial issue for the reader to think and to consider. This study is trying to find out the time-lags between leading index and coincident index and the accuracy of the cycle forecasting system. The Granger causality test is widely used to examine the time-lags between the leading index and the coincident index. From the result of this study, we can found that there has a 3-season time-gap embedded in, and this is an obvious difference indeed. In addition, the forecasted index of the leading indicator i.e. The MAPE is in 4.57% sharp. Thus, we dare to judge that the result of this study is absolutely accurate with 100% confidence.

封閉型基金的掛牌買賣價格，與其投資標的淨資產價值（NAV, net asset value）間，總是存在一定程度的差距，且幾乎為10%~20%的折價現象，被視為財務學上的一種異常（anomaly）。早期研究學者們由經濟理性的角度解釋此種現象，認為是基金管理的績效表現、投資標的流動性或是稅制上的差異等等角度來解釋此一現象，但並沒有獲得一致的結論。 近期以來，有學者嘗試從行為財務學的角度，認為封閉型基金的折溢價現象及其幅度的變化，是由於投資人情緒（investor sentiment）的波動所造成。除了傳統的迴歸模式，更有不少學者以嚴謹的計量方式分析，例如財務時間序列的許多技巧。本研究即以時間序列之單根檢定（unit root test）、共整合現象檢定（co-integration test）及Granger因果關係檢定（Granger Causality test）等等方式，分析封閉型基金折溢價現象是否由投資人情緒所造成，及其兩者間是否有共整合現象。 雖然已有部分文獻探討類似議題，但跨國比較分析通常僅限於英、美兩國，且英、美兩國市場連動程度太高，可能影響分析結果的正確性；除此之外，樣本分析期間亦通常不超過十年。本研究以1991-2005年英國掛牌之封閉型基金為研究樣本，並包含投資標的為日本的封閉型基金，進行英國、日本之間的跨國性比較；不但有更足夠的樣本時間長度，亦能驗證是否不同跨國分析亦會有相同結論。 共整合現象檢定及Granger因果關係檢定大致支持行為財務學的角度。但英國、日本跨國比較的結果，似乎並不完全等同於前述英、美跨國比較的結果。建議後續可從掛牌國與投資標的區域連動程度較低的封閉型基金作為研究方向。 / The closed-end funds discounts have been an interesting phenomenon for a long period. Some theories based on economic rationale try to solve the puzzle but fail to get consistent conclusions. Recently some theories based on behavioral finance, such as the investor sentiment hypothesis, have been proposed to solve this puzzle. This study examines the investor sentiment hypothesis based on various time-series tests and finds some interesting results. Briefly, our conclusions are as follows: 1. The discounts can vary widely between funds and seem to be persistent in our sample period. 2. The local market indices are cointegrated with the domestic closed-end funds discounts and the information is flowed from the market to the closed-end funds, which support the investor sentiment hypothesis. 3. The causality relationship between the foreign closed-end funds and the local indices is not obvious. Based on this, the market segmentation hypothesis seems to hold in our sample, which indicates that investing in the foreign funds provide investors with the benefit of diversification. For future researches, we suggest that more the foreign funds should be included in the sample and the classification of the degree of investor sentiment and the categories of funds can also be improved.

Approved for public release; distribution in unlimited. / The principles of Sun Tzu's Art of War have been widely used by business executives and military officers with much success in the realm of competition and conflict. However, when conflict situations arise in a highly stressful environment coupled with the pressure of time, decision makers may not be able to consider all the key concepts when forming their decisions or strategies. Therefore, a structured reasoning approach may be used to apply Sun Tzu's principles correctly and fully. Sun Tzu's principles are believed to be able to be modeled mathematically; hence, a Bayesian Network model (a form of mathematical tool using probability theory) is used to capture Sun Tzu's principles and provide the structured reasoning approach. Scholars have identified incompleteness in Sun Tzu's appreciation of information in war and his application of secret agents. This incompleteness resulted in circular reasoning when both sides of the conflict apply his principles. This circular reasoning can be resolved through the use of advanced probability theory. A Bayesian Network Model however, not only provides a structured reasoning approach, but more importantly, it can also resolve the circular reasoning problem that has been identified. / Captain, Singapore Army

<p>У овој дисертацији се бавимо семантичком категоријом<br />каузалности у француском и српском језику<br />превасходно са становишта синтаксе и семантике,<br />односно утврђивањем инвентара и описом различитих<br />синтаксичких поступака и лексичких средстава којима<br />се ова категорија формализује у два посматрана језика.<br />Циљ ове контрастивне студије је да се установе начини<br />за изражавање каузалности, те да се систематизују<br />структурне подударности, односно неподударности у<br />француском и у српском језику, да се утврди степен<br />семантичке еквиваленције између њих, као и да се<br />укаже на најбоље могуће начине транспозиције<br />семантичког односа експлицитне или имплицитне<br />каузалности из једног посматраног језика у други. На<br />теоријском плану, резултати истраживања требало би<br />да употпуне постојећа лингвистичка сазнања везана за<br />каузалне односе уопште, а посебно у француском и<br />српском језику, док би се практичне импликације<br />добијених резултата огледале како у области<br />примењене лингвистике и у настави француског као<br />страног језика, тако и у непосредној преводилачкој<br />пракси.</p> / <p>U ovoj disertaciji se bavimo semantičkom kategorijom<br />kauzalnosti u francuskom i srpskom jeziku<br />prevashodno sa stanovišta sintakse i semantike,<br />odnosno utvrđivanjem inventara i opisom različitih<br />sintaksičkih postupaka i leksičkih sredstava kojima<br />se ova kategorija formalizuje u dva posmatrana jezika.<br />Cilj ove kontrastivne studije je da se ustanove načini<br />za izražavanje kauzalnosti, te da se sistematizuju<br />strukturne podudarnosti, odnosno nepodudarnosti u<br />francuskom i u srpskom jeziku, da se utvrdi stepen<br />semantičke ekvivalencije između njih, kao i da se<br />ukaže na najbolje moguće načine transpozicije<br />semantičkog odnosa eksplicitne ili implicitne<br />kauzalnosti iz jednog posmatranog jezika u drugi. Na<br />teorijskom planu, rezultati istraživanja trebalo bi<br />da upotpune postojeća lingvistička saznanja vezana za<br />kauzalne odnose uopšte, a posebno u francuskom i<br />srpskom jeziku, dok bi se praktične implikacije<br />dobijenih rezultata ogledale kako u oblasti<br />primenjene lingvistike i u nastavi francuskog kao<br />stranog jezika, tako i u neposrednoj prevodilačkoj<br />praksi.</p> / <p>This thesis examines the semantic category of causality in<br />French and Serbian, primarily from the point of view of<br />syntax and semantics, i.e. it provides an inventory and a<br />description of different syntactic and lexical means by<br />which this category is formalized in the two observed<br />languages. The purpose of this contrastive study is to<br />establish the ways of expressing causality, to systematize<br />structural congruence, or rather incongruence in French and<br />Serbian, to determine the degree of semantic equivalence<br />between them, as well as to point to the best possible means<br />of transposition of the semantic relation of explicit or<br />implicit causality from one observed language into the<br />other. At a theoretical level, the results of the research<br />should contribute to the existing linguistic knowledge of<br />causal relations in general, and particularly in French and<br />Serbian. The results obtained should have considerable<br />practical implications not only for applied linguistics, but<br />also for teaching French as a foreign language, and for<br />translation.</p>

Le problème de la responsabilité médicale se pose avec acuité dans le monde. S'agissant de nos Etats comme le Sénégal nous observons une timide évolution de la responsabilité. Cette dernière est induite par le type d'offre de soins. Cette interdépendance s'exprime au niveau de la nature de la responsabilité et de son régime juridique. Dans le cadre d'une offre publique de soins, la responsabilité est administrative et relève de la compétence du juge administratif. Dans le cadre de l'offre privée de soins, la responsabilité est civile et est de la compétence du juge judiciaire. A travers cette étude, nous avons observé que l'offre de soins est diversifiée du fait des nombreux acteurs et déséquilibrée du fait de l'absence de couverture de santé généralisée. Nous avons également constaté que les mécanismes traditionnels d'engagement de la responsabilité sont surannés dans certains cas, ayant pour conséquence la difficulté d'indemnisation des victimes. Une amélioration de la réglementation des pratiques médicales, y compris de la médecine traditionnelle, et une meilleure prise en charge des dépenses de santé de la population sénégalaise seraient souhaitables. Au vu de ces constats, nous préconisons donc l'accélération de l'adoption du Code de la santé publique du Sénégal et la création d'une Commission Régionale d'Indemnisation des accidents médicaux et des infections nosocomiales dans l'espace de l'Union Economique Monétaire Ouest Africaine, comme il en existe une en France. / The problem of the medical liability arises with acuteness in the world. In Senegal, we observe a shy evolution of the liability. This last one is inferred by the type of healthcare services. This interdependence expresses at the level of the nature of the liability and its legal regime. Within the framework of public healthcare services, the liability is administrative and recovers from the competence of the administrative judge. Within the framework of the private healthcare services, the liability is civil and is the competence of the judicial judge. Through this study, we observed that the healthcare services are diversified because of the numerous actors and unbalanced because of the absence of cover of generalized health. We also noticed that the traditional mechanisms of commitment of the liability are outmoded in certain cases, having for consequence the difficulty of compensation of the victims. An improvement of the regulations of the medical practices, including the traditional medicine, and a better coverage of the expenses of health of the Senegalese population would be desirable. In view of these reports, we thus recommend the acceleration of the adoption of the Public health code of Senegal and the creation of a Regional committee for Compensation of the medical accidents and the hospital-borne infections in the space of the Monetary Economic union the West African, as there is there one in France.

Les modèles de séries chronologiques avec variances conditionnellement hétéroscédastiques sont devenus quasi incontournables afin de modéliser les séries chronologiques dans le contexte des données financières. Dans beaucoup d'applications, vérifier l'existence d'une relation entre deux séries chronologiques représente un enjeu important. Dans ce mémoire, nous généralisons dans plusieurs directions et dans un cadre multivarié, la procédure dévéloppée par Cheung et Ng (1996) conçue pour examiner la causalité en variance dans le cas de deux séries univariées. Reposant sur le travail de El Himdi et Roy (1997) et Duchesne (2004), nous proposons un test basé sur les matrices de corrélation croisée des résidus standardisés carrés et des produits croisés de ces résidus. Sous l'hypothèse nulle de l'absence de causalité en variance, nous établissons que les statistiques de test convergent en distribution vers des variables aléatoires khi-carrées. Dans une deuxième approche, nous définissons comme dans Ling et Li (1997) une transformation des résidus pour chaque série résiduelle vectorielle. Les statistiques de test sont construites à partir des corrélations croisées de ces résidus transformés. Dans les deux approches, des statistiques de test pour les délais individuels sont proposées ainsi que des tests de type portemanteau. Cette méthodologie est également utilisée pour déterminer la direction de la causalité en variance. Les résultats de simulation montrent que les tests proposés offrent des propriétés empiriques satisfaisantes. Une application avec des données réelles est également présentée afin d'illustrer les méthodes / Time series models with conditionnaly heteroskedastic variances have become almost inevitable to model financial time series. In many applications, to confirm the existence of a relationship between two time series is very important. In this Master thesis, we generalize in several directions and in a multivariate framework, the method developed by Cheung and Ng (1996) designed to examine causality in variance in the case of two univariate series. Based on the work of El Himdi and Roy (1997) and Duchesne (2004), we propose a test based on residual cross-correlation matrices of squared residuals and cross-products of these residuals. Under the null hypothesis of no causality in variance, we establish that the test statistics converge in distribution to chi-square random variables. In a second approach, we define as in Ling and Li (1997) a transformation of the residuals for each residual time series. The test statistics are built from the cross-correlations of these transformed residuals. In both approaches, test statistics at individual lags are presented and also portmanteau-type test statistics. That methodology is also used to determine the direction of causality in variance. The simulation results show that the proposed tests provide satisfactory empirical properties. An application with real data is also presented to illustrate the methods

The last few years have witnessed an exponential increase in the availability and use of financial market data, which is sampled at increasingly high frequencies. Extracting useful information about the dependency structure of a system from these multivariate data streams has numerous practical applications and can aid in improving our understanding of the driving forces in the global financial markets. These large and noisy data sets are highly non-Gaussian in nature and require the use of efficient and accurate interaction measurement approaches for their analysis in a real-time environment. However, most frequently used measures of interaction have certain limitations to their practical use, such as the assumption of normality or computational complexity. This thesis has two major aims; firstly, to address this lack of availability of suitable methods by presenting a set of approaches to dynamically measure symmetric and asymmetric interactions, i.e. causality, in multivariate non-Gaussian signals in a computationally efficient (online) framework, and secondly, to make use of these approaches to analyse multivariate financial time series in order to extract interesting and practically useful information from financial data. Most of our proposed approaches are primarily based on independent component analysis, a blind source separation method which makes use of higher-order statistics to capture information about the mixing process which gives rise to a set of observed signals. Knowledge about this information allows us to investigate the information coupling dynamics, as well as to study the asymmetric flow of information, in multivariate non-Gaussian data streams. We extend our multivariate interaction models, using a variety of statistical techniques, to study the scale-dependent nature of interactions and to analyse dependencies in high-dimensional systems using complex coupling networks. We carry out a detailed theoretical, analytical and empirical comparison of our proposed approaches with some other frequently used measures of interaction, and demonstrate their comparative utility, efficiency and accuracy using a set of practical financial case studies, focusing primarily on the foreign exchange spot market.