No description available.

Thesis (doctoral)--Université de Lausanne, 1930. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-55).

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-55) Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Com. (Development Theory and Policy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2015. / Food price inflation has been an important subject of debate internationally since 2008. This sharp increase in food prices experienced during 2008 lead to intense research into the causes, dynamics and responses to this particular instance of food price inflation. The international literature attributed food price inflation to such factors as climate change, increases in energy costs and speculative activity in financial markets for agricultural commodities. This research report undertakes a review of the measurement of food price inflation in South Africa, broadly assessing how it is to be linked to the poor in South Africa. The research report focuses on the work of institutions concerned with the measurement of food price inflation in South Africa. Different methodologies of identifying foods as food staples are looked at. Food prices and trends are analysed using CPI data from January 2008 until October 2008, using selected consumer price index series from Statistics South Africa. The research report finds that the institutions studied show evidence of that higher food price inflation is correlated with demographic markers of poverty, although the traditional measure, the CPI, does not suggests that this is very extensive. This, it is argued, is due to the calculation methodologies used in the published CPI, and the data period. The research report then ends with an overview of the political economy of food in South Africa, thereby makes recommendations as to why the measurement of food price inflation is important for the poor.

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, 2012. / The purpose of this study is to investigate if the International Comparison Program (ICP) methodology could be used to examine the different buying power (worth) of the currency on the same products or goods amongst South African provinces. The method will be tested on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) food data collected from January 2006 to December 2006 from the main cities in the provinces. The food basket is obtained via the Income and Expenditure Survey (IES), which is generally updated every 5 years. South Africa (SA) has disparities and differentials in economic indicators such as the CPI, Gross Domestic Product and employment, amongst the provinces which are caused by among other things geographic set-up, urbanisation, inflation rates, and expenditure patterns. We use the monthly data to do an inter-provincial comparison of food prices by deriving annual purchasing power parities (PPPs) for each of the provinces, using the Country Product Dummy (CPD) method recommended as best practice by the World Bank. The CPI data is validated using the SEMPER software developed by the African Development Bank (AfDB). The validated data is examined for variability over the months and between the provinces using Analysis of Variance. Significant price differences are found for various products over the months and between provinces. The validated data was used to compute PPPs at the group and basic heading level. PPPs were investigated for differences in the provinces on grouped level of food products using Analysis of Variance. The reliability of PPPs between provinces is investigated both at grouped and basic heading level of products using the Cronbach-alpha statistic. The results show that there are no significant variations in PPPs across provinces. This could be due to the similar business opportunities or developments in the provinces or due to the aggregation of prices from the individual product (basic heading) to the main product group level. This implies that the cost of the food basket is the same across provinces.

published_or_final_version / Applied Statistics / Master / Master of Social Sciences

This thesis examines the theoretical underpinnings and practical construction of select economic and financial indexes. Such indexes are used for a variety of purposes, including the measurement of inflation, portfolio return performance, and firm productivity. Chapter 1 motivates interest in economic and financial indexes and introduces the principal ideas in the thesis. Chapter 2 focuses on one potential source of bias in the Canadian consumer price index (CPI) that arises from the emergence of large discount/warehouse stores—the so-called outlet substitution bias. Such outlets have gained market share in Canada in recent years, but current CPI procedures fail to capture the declines in average prices that consumers enjoy when they switch to such outlets. Unrepresentative sampling, and the fact that discount stores often deliver lower rates of price increase can further bias the CPI. Bias estimates for some elementary indexes are computed using data from Statistics Canada's CPI production files for the province of Ontario. It is shown that the effect on the Canadian CPI of inappropriately accounting for such discount outlets can be substantial. Another area in which indexes are frequently used is the stock market. Several stock market indexes exist, including those produced by Dow Jones and Company, Standard and Poor's Corporation, Frank Russell and Company, among others. These indexes differ in two fundamental respects: their composition and their method of computation—with important implications for their usage and interpretation. Chapter 3 introduces the concept of a stock index by asking what, in fact a stock market index is—this is tantamount to considering the purpose for which the index is intended, since stock indexes should be constructed according to their usage. Because stock indexes are most commonly used as measures of returns on portfolios, the main considerations in constructing such return indexes are examined. Chapter 4 uses the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) as a case study to examine its properties as a return index. It is shown that the DJIA is not the return on a market portfolio consisting of its thirty component stocks: in fact the DJIA measures the return performance on a very particular (and unusual) investment strategy, a fact that is not well understood by institutional investors. An examination of some other popular stock indexes shows that they all differ in their computational formula and that each is consistent with a particular investment strategy. Numerical calculations reveal that the return performance of the DJIA can vary considerably with the choice of basic index number formula, particularly over shorter time horizons. Given the numerous ways of constructing stock market return indexes, the user is left to determine which is 'best' in some sense. The choice of an appropriate (or 'best') formula for a stock market index is formally addressed in chapter 5. The test or axiomatic approach to standard bilateral index number theory as in Eichhorn & Voeller (1983), Diewert (1993a), and Balk (1995) is adapted here. A number of a priori desirable properties (or axioms) are proposed for a stock index whose purpose is to measure the gross return on a portfolio of stocks. It is shown that satisfaction of a certain subset of axioms implies a definite functional form for a stock market return index. Chapter 6 evaluates the various stock indexes is use today in terms of their usefulness as measures of gross returns on portfolios. To this end the axioms developed in chapter 5 are used to provide a common evaluative framework, in the sense that some of the indexes satisfy certain axioms while others do not. It is shown that the shortcomings of the DJIA as a measure of return arise from its failure to satisfy a number of the basic axioms proposed. Notwithstanding this, each index corresponds to a different investment strategy. Thus, when choosing an index for benchmarking purposes an investor should select one which closely matches his/her investment strategy—a choice that cannot be made by appealing to axioms alone.

This thesis examines the theoretical underpinnings and practical construction of select economic and financial indexes. Such indexes are used for a variety of purposes, including the measurement of inflation, portfolio return performance, and firm productivity. Chapter 1 motivates interest in economic and financial indexes and introduces the principal ideas in the thesis. Chapter 2 focuses on one potential source of bias in the Canadian consumer price index (CPI) that arises from the emergence of large discount/warehouse stores—the so-called outlet substitution bias. Such outlets have gained market share in Canada in recent years, but current CPI procedures fail to capture the declines in average prices that consumers enjoy when they switch to such outlets. Unrepresentative sampling, and the fact that discount stores often deliver lower rates of price increase can further bias the CPI. Bias estimates for some elementary indexes are computed using data from Statistics Canada's CPI production files for the province of Ontario. It is shown that the effect on the Canadian CPI of inappropriately accounting for such discount outlets can be substantial. Another area in which indexes are frequently used is the stock market. Several stock market indexes exist, including those produced by Dow Jones and Company, Standard and Poor's Corporation, Frank Russell and Company, among others. These indexes differ in two fundamental respects: their composition and their method of computation—with important implications for their usage and interpretation. Chapter 3 introduces the concept of a stock index by asking what, in fact a stock market index is—this is tantamount to considering the purpose for which the index is intended, since stock indexes should be constructed according to their usage. Because stock indexes are most commonly used as measures of returns on portfolios, the main considerations in constructing such return indexes are examined. Chapter 4 uses the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) as a case study to examine its properties as a return index. It is shown that the DJIA is not the return on a market portfolio consisting of its thirty component stocks: in fact the DJIA measures the return performance on a very particular (and unusual) investment strategy, a fact that is not well understood by institutional investors. An examination of some other popular stock indexes shows that they all differ in their computational formula and that each is consistent with a particular investment strategy. Numerical calculations reveal that the return performance of the DJIA can vary considerably with the choice of basic index number formula, particularly over shorter time horizons. Given the numerous ways of constructing stock market return indexes, the user is left to determine which is 'best' in some sense. The choice of an appropriate (or 'best') formula for a stock market index is formally addressed in chapter 5. The test or axiomatic approach to standard bilateral index number theory as in Eichhorn & Voeller (1983), Diewert (1993a), and Balk (1995) is adapted here. A number of a priori desirable properties (or axioms) are proposed for a stock index whose purpose is to measure the gross return on a portfolio of stocks. It is shown that satisfaction of a certain subset of axioms implies a definite functional form for a stock market return index. Chapter 6 evaluates the various stock indexes is use today in terms of their usefulness as measures of gross returns on portfolios. To this end the axioms developed in chapter 5 are used to provide a common evaluative framework, in the sense that some of the indexes satisfy certain axioms while others do not. It is shown that the shortcomings of the DJIA as a measure of return arise from its failure to satisfy a number of the basic axioms proposed. Notwithstanding this, each index corresponds to a different investment strategy. Thus, when choosing an index for benchmarking purposes an investor should select one which closely matches his/her investment strategy—a choice that cannot be made by appealing to axioms alone. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate