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Capital asset pricing theory assumes a no-tax, after-tax efficiency equivalence; ie., that the efficient information produced in a no-tax analysis is equivalent to that which is produced in an after-tax analysis. However, if the effect of income taxes is not systematic throughout the market, the useful application of the theory may be impaired by this assumption. This research seeks to determine the effect of income tax imposition on the risk-return expectations or individual investors. If the effect of income tax imposition is to produce non-homogeneous after-tax investor risk-return expectations, then the efficiency equivalence hypothesis must be rejected. This efficiency equivalency hypothesis is evaluated by testing two alternative hypotheses, (1) the systematic riskiness of any individual security, both with and without adjustment for the imposition of income tax, is equivalent, and (2) the no-tax and after-tax expected risk-return rank order of each individual security is the same. An after-tax capital asset pricing model is derived. This model is based upon the premise that the current income tax laws, which require investors to share with the taxing government the uncertain returns from risky assets, allow investors to reduce the riskiness of those returns. The returns on investment assets are derived from both capital gains and from ordinary income distributions. However, the tax treatment of capital gains (losses) and ordinary income (dividends/interest) is not the same. This results in an unsystematic effect on the risks and returns of investments, thus, the income tax effect is not likely to be homogeneous as an efficiency equivalence hypothesis would imply. The analysis focuses on the expected risk-return equivalencies for 465 firms, using ex-post data over a 10 year period. The findings of this study imply that income tax effects on the market are not homogeneous. Income tax differentials are apparent in both the observed beta terms and the risk-return rank-ordering of the securities.

published_or_final_version / Management Studies / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

This thesis deals with the perceptions of agroforestry among farmers in Babati, north- central Tanzania. The focus is on which resources farmers perceive that they need to adopt agroforestry and which risks that are connected with agroforestry adoption. It is also to see how farmers perceive that the access to resources changes after agroforestry adoption and how their livelihoods change. The data has been collected through qualitative interviews with agroforestry farmers, conventional farmers and extension officers. After that the data has been analyzed through the sustainable livelihood approach and a risk perception theory. The results show that some of the obstacles or risks that farmers perceive with agroforestry adoption are high input costs, dependency on short-term benefits, competition between trees and crops and lack of education from extension services. Without financial capital and human capital in terms of knowledge there might be too many risks connected with adoption. If agroforestry however is adopted the farmers perceive that the access to firewood, timber and fruits increase which increase their incomes and therefore financial capital. They also perceive that the fruits improve food security and that the timber improves the housing. The firewood is also perceived to improve the situation for women as they do not have to walk as far to collect the firewood. Agroforestry is also perceived to provide environmental services like erosion prevention and increased soil fertility, therefore it increases natural capital. Some trees can also be used as natural pesticides. The increased soil fertility or the access to natural pesticides, however does not seem to affect the use of industrial fertilizers or pesticides. Agroforestry is also not perceived to have any effects on biodiversity or water quality. Even if agroforestry may not be a good choice for all farmers, it can for some farmers increase their ability to cope with stress and shocks like future climate change. This is because the agroforestry system can work as a buffer against increased climatic variability.

Ph.D. / This thesis investigates the impact of domestic and foreign financial crises on volatility dynamics in South Africa. In a sample ranging from January 1994 to March 2009, Chapter 2 provides empirical support for the theory that domestic currency crises are associated with significant structural changes in daily exchange rate volatility. Speciacally, crisis periods coincide with large positive shifts in unconditional variance. Using this fact, we propose a new method - the structural change generalised conditional heteroskedasticity, or SC-GARCH, model - for identifying precise start- and end-dates for crises. Chapter 3 studies volatility transmission within SA from October 1996 to June 2010. Using a generalised version of the vector autoregressive (VAR) approach, time-varying and bidirectional volatility spillover indices are esti- mated for domestic currency, bond and equity markets. The results identify equities as the primary source of volatility transfer to other asset classes. At di erent points in time, spillovers are responsible for anywhere between 7.5 and 65 percent of system-wide volatility. Local maxima in spillover magni- tudes are estimated during domestic, as well as foreign crisis periods. Chapter 4 estimates time-varying comovement between SA and world volatilities during the period from 1994 to 2008. A dynamic factor model (FM) is used to extract three latent global volatility factors from a data panel which is representative of the world equity market portfolio. Relative to most other emerging markets, the global factors are poor predictors of volatility in SA. However, SA's comovement with global volatility increases sharply in response to emerging market crises in Asia (1997-8) and Russia (1998). The global factors are also important determinants of domestic volatility during the latter stages of the US subprime crisis (2007-8). Chapter 5 proposes the factor-augmented VAR as a parsimonious model for the transmission of foreign volatility shocks to SA equities. We compare international volatility transmission resulting from crises in Asia (1997-8) and the US (2007-8). Although the US crisis has a larger impact on the world equity market, the Asian shock leads to more dramatic increases in volatility in emerging economies, including SA.

The purpose of this research report is to determine whether the use of a Downside risk variable – the D-Beta – is more appropriate in the emerging market of South Africa than the regular Beta used in the CAPM model. The prior research upon which this report expands, performed by Estrada (1999; 2002; 2005), focuses on using Downside risk models mainly at an overall country (market) level. This report focuses exclusively on South Africa, but could be applicable to various other emerging markets. The reason for researching this topic is simple: Investors – not just in South Africa, but all across the world – think of risk differently to the way that it is defined in terms of modern portfolio theory. Beta measures risk by giving equal weight to both Upside and Downside volatility, while in reality, investors are a lot more sensitive to Downside fluctuations. The Downside Beta takes into account only returns which are below a certain benchmark, thereby allowing investors to determine a share’s Downside volatility. When the Downside Beta is included as the primary measure of systematic risk in an asset pricing model (such as the D-CAPM), the result is a model which can be used to determine cost of equity, and make forecasts about share returns. The results of this research indicate that using the D-CAPM to forecast returns results in improved accuracy when compared to using the CAPM. However, when comparing goodness of fit, the CAPM and the D-CAPM are not significantly different. Even with this conflicting result, this research shows that there is indeed value in using the D-Beta in South Africa, especially during times of economic downturn.

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), as introduced by Markowitz (1952), Sharpe (1964), Lintner (1965), Black (1972) and Mossin (1966), offers powerful and intuitively pleasing predictions about the risk and return relationship that is expected when investing in equities. Studies on the empirical strength of the CAPM such as Fama and French (1992), however, indicate that the model does not reflect the share return actually obtained on the equity market. Attempting to improve the model, Fama and French (1993) enhanced the original CAPM by incorporating other factors which may be relevant in predicting the return on share investments, specifically, the book – to – market ratio and the market capitalisation of the entity. Carhart (1997) further attempted to improve the CAPM by incorporating momentum analysis together with the 3 factors identified by Fama and French (1993). This research report empirically evaluates the accuracy of the above three models in calculating the cost of equity on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange over the period 2002 to 2012. Portfolios of shares were constructed based on the three models for the purposes of this evaluation. The results indicate that the book-to-market ratio and market capitalisation are able to add some robustness to the CAPM, but that the results of formulating book – to – market and market capitalization portfolios is highly volatile and therefore may lead to inconsistent results going forward. By incorporating the short run momentum effect, the robustness of the CAPM is improved substantially, as the Carhart model comes closest to reflecting what, for the purposes of this study, represents the ideal performance of an effective asset pricing model. The Fama and French (1993) and Carhart (1997) models therefore present a step forward in formulating an asset pricing model that will hold up under empirical evaluation, where the expected cost of equity is representative of the total return that can be expected from investing in a portfolio of shares. It is however established that the additional factors indicated above are volatile, and this volatility may influence the results of a longer term study.

Abstract not available

"August 1998" Bibliography: leaves 74-78. The relationship between the returns to a stock, and ratio of book equity to market equity of the firm, are tested for the Australian stock market, and statistically significant evidence is found in support if the :book to market effect". Several tests are performed to determine whether this return premium is the result of additional risk or market inefficiency. No evidence is found to suggest that high book-to-market stocks are associated with additional risk, and only weak evidence is found to suggest that return premium is a result of investor over-reaction. An alternative explanation IS offered, relying on the dynamic behavior of firms and the process by which investors value the stocks of these firms.