This thesis investigated the combined effects of Trade and Financial market liberalisation on the development and survival of manufacturing small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria. This came after the implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1986. The SAP was prompted by the economic downturn experienced in the early 1980s and formed the basis for the liberalisation of trade and financial markets. The ensuing liberalised trade necessitated the removal of import and export restrictions in order to encourage competition, improve efficiency and exports of locally manufactured goods. The liberalisation of the financial markets on the other hand, prompted the deregulation of interest rates, exchange rates and the licensing of new banks to stimulate competition for the supply of investible funds for easy access for SMEs. The study applied quantitative and qualitative methods to gather primary data from 500 SMEs operating in Lagos state of Nigeria. The data were combined with panel data from the Central Bank of Nigeria to explore the impact of the policies on SMEs. The result of the analysis using SPSS 16.0 and the application of return on investment (ROI) model on the survey and semi-structured interview data respectively reveals that although financial market liberalisation improved the availability of funds in Nigeria, it did not reduce the cost of accessing finance nor did it solve the problems of access to funds for SMEs. This study also found that the trade liberalisation did not improve SMEs’ efficiency to compete favourably with firms based abroad or export their products due to the absence of necessary infrastructure needed for efficient production process. The government needs to regulate the financial market to protect it from speculative interests that have made interest rates very high in Nigeria. In addition, the necessary infrastructure needed for efficient production has to be in place before SMEs can compete effectively.

This thesis documents the stylized facts of the business cycle in Thailand and analyzes the ability of real business cycle models to capture these facts. The models are solved by the method of finding a linear approximation to the first order condition proposed by King, Plosser and Rebelo (1988). By using the Baxter and King band pass filter to extract the cyclical component, we find that the volatility of investment and government spending are higher than that of aggregate output. The striking feature in developing countries, including Thailand, is that consumption is more volatile than output. These variables in general are pro-cyclical and highly persistent. Net exports are highly volatile and counter-cyclical. The business cycle features of developing countries tend to be more volatile than those of developed countries. The output fluctuations of the Asian countries are positively correlated. A real business cycle model is constructed and it includes permanent, pure and realistic shocks to technology and government spending. The technology shock of Thai economy during 1993-2006 is significantly persistent. The government spending shock cannot generate the real business cycle properties. The multiple shocks and the shocks off steady state are introduced to alternatively study the effect of fiscal policy by replicating the 1997 Asian crisis. The government spending seems to have a limited applicability for this model. The model fails to explain a high volatility of consumption. The difference between theory and data is also present in the volatility and contemporaneous correlation with output of labour, wages and interest rate. A one good two country international real business cycle model with complete market in line with Baxter and Crucini (1995) is built to explain the international facts of Thailand. The relationship between the Thai real aggregate fluctuations and those of the US from 1993-2006 is investigated. Technology spillovers significantly transfers from the US to Thailand, not another way around. The contemporaneous correlation of technology innovation of Thailand and the US is negative. The impulse response is done for permanent and realistic shocks of technology, government spending and taxation. The shocks off the steady state and the multiple shocks are also explored in the context of the open economy model. It is obvious from this analysis that large countries do not respond to small country shocks. Small countries, particular openness, are dominated by large iii country shocks. The responses in Thailand are significant if the shocks are originated in the US. The model requires a high variance of technology innovation to explain the Thai facts. The shock in the US can explain the co-movement in Thailand better than the shock originates in Thailand itself. The model performs poorly to match the data in term of international co-movement and predicts that the cross correlation of consumption is higher than that of output.

No description available.

This thesis examines the extent to which stakeholders in Uganda perceive the country's present governance framework to be effective in providing confidence about the corporate sector. The study is based upon semi-structured interviews and questionnaire surveys with different groups of stakeholders in Uganda. The issues that are examined include the legal, regulatory and supervisory frameworks, the political framework, the cultural framework, the ethical framework and the economic framework underpinning governance in the nation's corporate sector. The research adopts an accountability perspective to investigate the various issues that emerge; the results suggest that urgent action is needed in order to facilitate the implementation of a sound corporate governance system that provides for a meaningful degree of accountability.

This thesis examines exchange rate policies in Africa, using data from 1980 to 2005. Africa's economic growth failure has been characterised as a 'disaster'. Among the identified culprits are inappropriate exchange rate policies. For a quarter of a century now, African economies have introduced exchange rate based stabilization programmes to restructure their economies. The thesis used different empirical techniques to investigate various aspects of exchange rate policies in Africa. It first uses an econometric model along with statistical analysis to verify whether the countries practise what they report in terms of exchange rate regimes. The results corroborate other findings that countries' de jure regime could be different from de facto. Threshold cointegration analysis was used to explore long-run relationship between reserves and exchange rates. The results show that, after accounting for threshold effects, there is a long-run relationship between reserves and exchange rates in these countries. This supports the empirical technique of using reserve changes as indicators of exchange rate interventions in developing countries. Determinants of long-run real exchange rates were examined based on a trade relation model. The econometric methodology uses vector error correction mechanism (VECM), within which the traditional determinants of real exchange rates in developing countries are considered. The outcome indicates that these variables are significant in the countries considered. The thesis further investigates sources of real exchange rate fluctuations in a sample of African countries. The work was motivated by a stochastic open economy macroeconomic model and the econometric estimation was carried out within a trivariate structural VAR model. The findings suggest that demand shock accounted for most of the variations in real exchange rates. Supply shocks were, to a large extent, significant in countries whose supply-side reforms seem to be effective. Does exchange rate regime matter for terms of trade shocks in developing countries? This is what chapter seven explores. It investigates how African countries cope with terms of trade shocks under different exchange rate regimes. The results indicate that there is not much difference between countries with a floating regime and those with a fixed regime. A further investigation on exchange rate pass-through was undertaken and the findings indicate that exchange rate pass-through is very low in these countries, which could not induce 'expenditure switching'. Function of nominal exchange rates as an insulator of the real side of the economy is inhibited.

No description available.

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) is one of the most contested transformation programmes of post-apartheid South Africa. The empowerment process was the result of centuries of disempowerment of the majority of the population, a process intensified and institutionalised when the National Party came to power in 1948. Due to the bargained transition, however, the first phase of BEE was driven by the private sector with minimal government intervention. At this point it was primarily focused on equity transfer, ownership and the promotion of blacks into management positions. As a result of heavy criticism and the collapse of a number of BEE companies during the 1997-8 economic crisis, there were strong demands to redefine the programme to achieve genuinely broad-based empowerment, and for government intervention to support it. This resulted in the Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act of 2003. Based on the understanding that the political and economic system has shaped various policies in post-apartheid South Africa, this study takes a political economy approach to examine the development of black-owned small business as a strategy for the empowerment of the majority. It is structured into three interlinking parts. The first provides the historical context, examining the foundations of the present empowerment process. The second explores the trajectories of power that led to the policies of small business development and broad-based economic empowerment. The third considers the implementation process through the investigation of national and provincial empowerment institutions, private sector participation and the extent to which an entrepreneurial culture exists in South Africa. Taken together these seek to answer the primary question of how the political and economic system is affecting the development of black-owned enterprises for broad-based empowerment. Methodologically this research adopts a critical realist approach, and utilises triangulation techniques to analyse multiple sources of evidence, such as the critical deconstruction of various written sources including legal, archival, media and policy documents. Primary data was acquired through a qualitative approach combining observation, informal interactions; formal in-depth interviews with key informants, and seminars and conference notes. A case study approach has been used to give detailed explanations of some of the complex causal relations in real-life and empowerment interventions. This approach helps link theoretical discourses on empowerment, policy and entrepreneurship in the study framework with the realities of the political and economic interactions in the empowerment process. The findings of this study show that contrary to general assumption, ideology and economic interest rather than race shaped the two policies. Even though the BBEE policy process was completely carried out by blacks, it has still retained its minimalist approach. The policy document portrays two ambiguous approaches: a broad-based strategy that targets a few and a broad-based strategy that targets the majority. However, the mechanism for implementing the programme favours the former. The implication is that rather than an integrated approach to developing black-owned businesses that recognises the diversity of the disempowered group, the process takes a macro and market-oriented approach to empowerment that is focused on promoting small, medium and large enterprises, and is therefore not yielding a genuine empowerment dividend for the majority of the targeted group. Although there is an indication that empowerment could reach the majority at the grass-roots level through micro enterprises and the cooperative movement, insufficient resources are being invested in this sector. Finally, the limited political engagement of civil society organisations is contributing to the continued neglect of the majority of disempowered blacks in the empowerment process.

This thesis examines the efficacy of the government's current policy in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) designed to reduce dependence on non-UAE labour by increasing the number and spread ofUAE nationals in the workforce. Foreign labour includes all those workers who enter the country on resident's visas and are issued with labour cards entitling them to work for a particular employer. It is the declared policy of the UAE government, at all levels (and in both local and national government) that there should be a reduction in the numbers of foreign workers employed, and the target is to halve the present total by 2010. The thesis relies on evidence from primary sources at all levels in the political, occupational and social domains, but whatever sector the research informants represent, they are mainly at the levels of decision makers, and opinion formers; politicians (of the Ruling Families), senior businessmen and industrialists in the public and private sectors and senior Civil Servants at the Under Secretary level. The thesis seeks to challenge the Government's assertion that it can afford to reduce the ex-patriot component of the labour force by half and still sustain steady economic growth. Many informants supported this view with comments like '... we will be overrun with foreigners', ' ... it is our country, why should we share our wealth with those who have no commitment to the Muslim states' and 'they come here, take jobs away from locals and then send the money out of the country'. Conversely, an Under Secretary at the Abu Dhabi Municipality stated, " ... our birth rate is high and will get progressively higher and this will filter into the labour force before long". The views expressed here were all tested in the research and found wanting. Based on the evidence, all these arguments can be rebuffed and therefore with it goes the credibility the Government's view of sustaining steady economic growth with half the numbers of ex-patriot workers. For example, the Under Secretary's view that the national birth rate will eventually neutralise the contribution ex-patriots are making to the economy, has he taken into consideration that the recent abolition of the Marriage Fund may reduce the marriages of locals to each other and therefore impact on the 'national' birth-rate. Will the offspring of a national woman and a Philippino father be regarded as nationals? When there are no manual workers to fill construction jobs, which locals refuse to do. Who will work on the construction sites which presently serves to sustain the economic growth and attract foreign investment? Where will the essential skilled knowledge workers come from? The evidence from the Head of Human Resources at Etisalat is that although there are an abundance of colleges in UAE for technical training, he still has to go to India to recruit technicians. The UAE sustains one of the highest standards of living in the GCC area. As a free trade area (shortly to initiate a single currency policy), there will be a major surge of many workers from less developed countries attracted by the higher standard of living in UAE and then the suggestion is to extend the Union beyond the present countries to undeveloped countries like Sudan, Somalia, Egypt, etc. The chapters, individually and collectedly serve to explore in depth the substance of the Government's assertion. That is the vision of Emiritisation by the year 2010 when the local labour force will be able to sustain the present levels of growth without excessive foreign labour. Suggestions are highlighted and recommendations made on how this growth can be sustained, but the evidence gathered supports the view that the focus should shift from numbers of ex-pats to the cultural and attitudinal changes of the local which need to be made when the jobs in the public sector no longer exist. Changes such as locals preferring to be unemployed than to taking jobs in the private sectors, the role and function of women's participation in the labour force, a shift away from traditional Islamic values by the young and an increase in crime, drug abuse, alcoholism and car accidents. All anathema to the dictates of the Holy Koran and to the older, pioneering generation, generally. These variables will all be researched in depth by the use of qualitative methods and used to establish the conclusions and support the recommendations.

This thesis examines the impact of European Structural Funds’ Regulations on the administrative arrangements regarding regional policy process in Greece. More specifically, it examines to what extent the application of the Regional Development Fund during the two programming periods 1989-1993 and 1994-1999, has initiated changes in the administrative structures of the country, as well as changes in the logic of regional policy formulation and implementation. The presence of the literature on Europeanisation of domestic administrations, conceived as administrative adaptation to European Regulations’ requirements, is followed by a discussion of the 1988 reform of the European Structural Funds and the principles introduced or re-enforced in this context. An analysis of the political and administrative culture of Greece, as well as a description of the State organisation is offered. Subsequently the national regional policy process is discussed, with view to highlighting the situation prevailing in regional policy process preceding the 1988 reform and its application. After a presentation of the main theoretical approaches to Europeanisation, the <i>institutionalist</i> approach is studied, as the most appropriate to interpret the response of the Greek administrative system to the requirements of the Structural Funds’ Regulations. The specific reasons why institutionalism is deemed as the proper analytical tool in the case of Greece are analysed. The empirical research involves initially the discussion of the administrative reforms introduced in response of the Structural Funds Regulations at the national level. Apart from the legal changes, the reaction of the central administration and the experience of central government actors regarding the process of the reforms are reported. The case study focuses on the Region of Thessaly, and discusses the Regional Operational Programmes corresponding to the two programming periods. It highlights the clash between the principles of the European Regulators on the one hand, and domestic practices on the other, confirming the findings reported at the national level. The loci of resistance to change are traced, in a way that brings into relief the role of culture in forging patterns of action and interaction in public policy process. Finally, the theoretical and empirical parts are brought together in a conclusive manner.

No description available.