M.Comm. / South Africa's new political dispensation has indicated that it regards unbundling of conglomerates and antitrust policy as appropriate means to ensure black empowerment and create wealth among the victums of the apartheid-era. Unbundling will however not necessarily aid the distribution of wealth due to the existing shareholder structure in the country. The creation of an entrepreneural class is seen as an effective means to alleviate the jobless problem and empower the masses, but will be difficult to establish without help from government, and more importantly, big business. PURPOSE The main purpose of this study is to investigate the causes of bundling and current business size and how black empowerment and wealth creation can be addressed through new structures. METHOD OF STUDY In this study information was obtained from existing literature sourced from the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Small Business Development Corporation, investment community, Business Periodical Index and libraries at Rand Afrikaans University and University of South Africa. FINDINGS The historic reasons for current business size are essentially the same as those in the rest of the world, with the exception that politics played a major role in South Africa. The exclusion of certain population groups led to political instability and the sanctions-era, which increased the tendency for big business to bundle or form conglomerates. Evidence exists that unbundling will not create wealth by distributing ownership of companies but could in fact only benefit existing shareholders. Black empowerment and wealth creation can be established by the forming of new pyramid-structures and the creation of an entrepreneural class with help from existing conglomerates and government. South Africa is part of the international economic environment and needs big businesses in order to be competitive. Small businesses on the other hand can be utilized to address the unemployment problem especially in rural areas. Conglomerates can assist small businesses with mangement and finance which should prove to be a better alternative in the long run than unbundling.

M.A. / The purpose of this study is to compare the 1932 and 1989 Carnegie reports which dealt respectively with the issues of white and black poverty in South Africa. In 1932 the Carnegie report on white poverty was published which dealt with the causes, dimensions and possible solutions of poverty among the white (Afiikaner) community. In 1989 a similar report was published, the emphasis however being placed on the causes, dimensions and possible solutions of black poverty. The purpose of this study is to compare these two reports in their handling of the different poverty issues with specific emphasis on the role of politics in the causes and possible solutions of poverty. Research produced interesting points of agreement and disagreement. It was found that the magnitude of black poverty far exceeds that of white poverty 50% of the black population lives in poverty while only 17.5% of whites lived in poverty during the 1930's. The two Carnegie reports used the same indicators of poverty: the shortage of housing, education, health and unemployment. The historical causes of both black and white poverty can be traced to the same roots, for example the Anglo-Boer War and the Great Depression of the 1930's. However, the main causes of white poverty according to the Carnegie report were the inability of the population to adapt to changing economic conditions, farming problems, inadequate education and isolating circumstances. These are mainly socio-economic issues. In contrast, black poverty is largely caused by political factors, i.e. the policy of apartheid that discriminated against blacks in every sphere of life. White poverty was solved by a combination of three factors. The first was a process of ethnic mobilisation launched by Afrikaner leaders and designed to address "psychological" poverty. The second was economic growth as a result of the government's industrial policy and favourable external economic conditions. The third and most important was a deliberate policy of the government aimed at combating poverty. This included generous portions of the budget allocated to poor whites, comprehensive job creation programmes, legislation designed to favour white workers as opposed to black workers and the provision of housing, health services and education to the poor whites. According to the 1989 Carnegie report, black poverty is "a profoundly political issue". Therefore it cannot be solved until a fundamental redistribution of political power has taken place. This study evaluated the complex anti-poverty strategy proposed by the Carnegie report which covers a wide range of topics (for example education, health, rural development and housing) over the short and the long term, Although the Carnegie reports did not directly contribute to the solution of white or black poverty, it did however, lead to a greater public awareness of the poverty problem Both the (future) government and the private sector are to contribute to the solution of black poverty. In the study attention was also paid to issues not addressed by the Carnegie report, such as the redistribution of land, the role of the small business sector and population growth. It is concluded that the solution of black poverty hinges on addressing their "psychological" poverty, collective action to stimulate economic growth and effective government intervention in the economy.

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate if the macroeconomic change that has occurred in the South African economy since the 1980s has been significant enough to justify a re-examination of the actuaries’ capitalisation rate, due to its formulation processes dependence on the macroeconomic situation. The need for the reexamination arises from the use of the capitalisation in the calculation of lump sum awards where even a small change in the rate can have a significant impact on the value of the final award. In order to address the issue an examination of how Keynesian expectations are formulated and an examination of the Government’s macroeconomic policy was conducted to provide the foundation. On this foundation, a trend analysis of the major groups of financial instruments, as well as the current outlooks for the South African economy, was conducted to determine if there was any indication of a significant change in the macroeconomic conditions. The results of the analysis provided a compelling case for the urgent need for the actuaries’ capitalisation rate to be recalculated to account for the changed economic situation.

Please read the abstract in the section 08summary of this document. Please note that page 1 of chapter 1 was missing in both available copies of this dissertation. / Dissertation (MA (Political Sciences))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Political Sciences / unrestricted

[The] region, as defined, excludes not only these metropolitan areas themselves but also the inner peripheries of their hinterlands. Thus, virtually all areas within regular (i. e. daily) commuting distance of the metropolitan centres, and all areas into which urban development in the latter might 'spill over' in the foreseeable future are excluded. In the case of Metropolitan Port Elizabeth, these exclusions are reflected in the roughly 'crescent-shaped' southern boundary of the region. The situation of the region can further be described in terms of its major physiographic features which reveal a number of factors which are also of importance for understanding and analysing the economy of the area. Intro., p. 1.

Please read the abstract in the 00front part of this document / Thesis (DCom (Agricultural Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

Exchange rates are one of the most essential determinants of a country's economic performance in terms of level of trade. Since the exchange rate is one of the best indicators of competitiveness, this study sought to examine the behaviour of the rand against other emerging countries in the South African exchange market. The study explored the trends and estimated the forecasting accuracy of six currency markets using ARCH-family and Random walk models over the period 1994 to 2013.The six currency markets examined were the Rand/Dollar, Rand/Pound, Rand/Euro, Rand/Yen and Rand/Pula. The Rand exchange rates did exhibit the characteristics of volatility clustering and asymmetric effects suggesting volatility of the Rand. Exchange rates tend to rise when there is more bad news in the financial market than good news and positive shocks imply a higher next period conditional variance than negative shocks of the same sign.

The study is looking at poverty alleviation initiatives in Amathole district, the case of Gqushwa local Municipality. The study is looking at the issue of consultation and support that government is offering to the beneficiaries when they are involved in the poverty alleviation projects. The right to food is a human rights issue as enshrined in the constitution of the South Africa on the other hand the policies and legislation of the county also backs the development and establishment of such initiatives. Amongst the findings of the study the following points are very key, establishment of the projects, the contribution that these projects have on the lives of the project members, members remaining poverty stricken even though they have 5 years or more participating in the project, most of the time there is no ownership from the community members and lastly the leadership of the community not showing interest in the projects even though they enhance accessibility to resources like poultry and vegetable gardens. In other instances, they indicated that the projects do not show good returns.

A country’s performance is commonly measured by its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Gross Domestic Product in Developing Countries (DCs) can be seen confusing and unbalanced, with regular and unconditional falls and booms. This study aims at examining the factors that affect the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Developing Countries (DCs) whereby South Africa is being selected as a representative. An econometric analysis of the Keynesian model is adopted to test the South African Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over a decade (10 years). The methodology conducted uses quarterly time series data from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) where the South African Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is modelled as a function of consumption expenditure, domestic investment, government spending and export/import of the country. This is in order to determine which of these factors best explain South African economic growth dynamics. The variables in the model are tested for stationary and the result shows that the variables become stationary at 1st difference, except for consumption which become stationary at 2nd difference. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) results confirm that consumption, investment, government spending and net export all have a positive impact on Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The findings suggest that the South African Gross Domestic Product is mainly influenced by consumption, followed by investment. In the recommendation context, the study recommends that South Africa should continue to maintain price stability while at the same time endeavour to attract more investment to the country. Moreover, Developing Countries need to maintain a fiscal discipline without necessarily losing sight of the international dynamics. For further areas of studies, the study recommends more analysis on macroeconomic policies that are comprehensive and can cover all aspects related to the Keynesian model of economic growth. Finally, it is necessary to remind that the findings and recommendations drawn from the study are limited to the concept of South Africa and are based only on the results from the empirical analysis conducted.

South Africa is endowed with a well-developed and regulated financial system which compares favourably with those of other developed economies. Therefore the financial sector is intended to play a significant role in supporting the real economy, by enhancing trade and stimulating economic growth and development. Despite the existence of a stable, developed and well-regulated financial sector, the South African economy has experienced current account deficits for the past 10 years and economic growth rates have mostly trailed behind the targets prescribed by the socio-economic programs formulated and implemented since 1994. To solve the trade – financial development – economic growth nexus problem, most studies have focused on other countries while research studies on South Africa did not explicitly investigate the trade – financial development – economic growth triangle, the linkage which failed to yield the desired outcome for South Africa’s post 1994 era.Therefore, this study employs Cointegration Vector Autoregressive (CVAR) methodology to investigate the relationship between trade, financial development and economic growth in South Africa. The unit root test revealed that the variables considered in the study are I(1) variables and the Johansen cointegration test justified the existence of a long run relationship among the variables. The empirical findings indicate that imports and financial development are positively related to exports whilst economic growth is negatively related to exports. The VAR Ganger causality test has shown that there is a uni-directional causality running from financial development to economic growth, exports and imports and that imports Granger cause exports. The results of this study form the basis for further investigation into the non-performance of exports and economic growth in the nexus. The research study opens up new policy insights by suggesting that financial policy can be used to be more supportive to the production of intermediate and finished products destined for both international and domestic markets.