Includes bibliographical references (leaves 67-75). / This thesis is concerned with an empirical investigation of the determinants of lending rates in Zambia in the aftermath of financial sector reforms. Cointegration techniques in a multivariate framework are employed to investigate the issue. Empirical findings indicate the presence of long-run cointegrating relationships between the lending rate, money supply, expected inflation, domestic debt, expected domestic currency depreciation or appreciation and foreign interest rates.

Gender differences in labour market outcomes are pervasive in current society. Competitiveness is viewed as a possible factor contributing to the favourable labour market outcomes for men, with the stylised fact being that men are more competitive than women on average. In this study, we experimentally investigate whether institutional structures (gender-based Affirmative Action and Role Models) mitigate the gender differences in competitiveness. Although Affirmative Action has been explored in the literature, the longer-term implications of the preferential treatment creating role model representation have not been examined. Consistent with the literature, we find men have a higher preference for a competitive environment compared with women in our sample. However, there are no significant impacts of the gender based institutional structures on the choice to compete in our experiment. When analysing the responsiveness of performance to a competitive environment and the associated beliefs, we see the female role model treatment encourages a competitive spirit in everyone, whereas the Affirmative Action treatment has a negative effect on the competitive performance of African men. In this experiment, gender-based institutions therefore either have unexpected effects of encouraging competitiveness in all participants, or inadvertently reinforce competitiveness gaps across other dimensions of identity, such as population-group. One therefore needs to be considerate of other dimensions of identity in addition to gender when devising preferential treatment policies, and the resulting role model representation, in practice. Changes in beliefs can only partially be exercised as an explanatory channel for these effects.

This research examines how consumers in Nigeria respond to income and price changes of carbonated soft drinks (CSDs). I first analysed the trend in CSD and fruit juice affordability between 2005 and 2018. I subsequently estimated the own-price, cross-price and income elasticities of sugar, CSDs, chocolate drinks, milk and sachet water for Nigeria in 2013, 2016 and a pooled sample. I used the relative income price to examine CSD and fruit juice affordability over time in Nigeria for both off-trade and on-trade consumption. For estimating the own-price, cross-price and expenditure elasticities, I used the Nigeria Household Survey, Panel (2013 and 2016) data, using the Almost Ideal Demand System. I applied Deaton's unit value model and used unit values as prices and used the Heckman procedure to correct for selection bias. For CSDs, the own-price elasticities ranged from - 0.8 to -1.8. All income (approximated by household expenditure) elasticities were positive implying all the commodities are normal goods. The income elasticity of demand lies at approximately 0.4 for CSDs. The results suggest that Nigeria can curb the consumption of excess sugar, in particular excess sugar in CSDs, by raising the price by implementing an excise tax on the sugar content in CSDs. Future research should estimate the health gains and government revenue that can be generated from such a tax. Such estimates are crucial to motivate for a sugar tax.

Regional analysis of farm structure and employment

Jabalpur division Madhya Pradesh

Landless agricultural labour

Credit through cooperatives in India

Agricultural sector of Madhya Pradesh

The speculative currency transaction markets are the largest capital markets in the world with an estimated US$2 trillion being traded every day. By comparison the daily global transactions related to international trade, goods and services represent only a small proportion of capital trades. Speculative flight in times of capital crises has triggered major social and economic disruptions such as those in Mexico (1994), East Asia (1997-98) Russia (1998), Brazil (1999), Turkey (2000) and Argentina (2001). Smaller crises occur regularly including currency speculation losses by the Reserve Bank of Australia in 2002 and corporate disruptions from trading losses incurred by the National Bank of Australia in 2004. Recently (May 2006) hedge funds withdrew vast quantities of capital from Iceland and New Zealand causing major disruptions to financial systems in both countries. Each disruption causes trauma to small and institutional investors and to civil society. The proliferation of transactions and the rise in accommodating and secretive offshore tax havens has created a global shadow economy, which has essentially reconfigured capitalism in modern times. This paper examines the political economy of financial market reform and the financial architecture required to implement a currency transaction tax. The thesis defends an argument in support of global currency transaction taxes based on proposals originally made by Keynes, Tobin, Spahn and Schmidt. There is an urgent need to account for the effects created by the speculative and volatile global shadow economy. Recent developments in hedge fund regulation measures demonstrate that the lobbying power of new financial players create major problems for policymakers and global financial security.

The relatively stable overall wage inequality in South Africa between 2001 and 2011 has hidden two distinct trends. Strong growth above the median for high wage earners has increased inequality at the top of the earnings distribution, whilst similarly, strong growth below the median has decreased inequality at the bottom of the distribution. This paper uses the 'task' approach alongside a Recentred Influence Function decomposition framework to explore the factors associated with this pattern of change. The findings suggest that routine-biased technical change and minimum wage laws enacted over the decade have important roles to play in the changes.