One of the major sources of income to South African Municipalities is property rates. Income generated from property rates is meant to develop and deliver services to residents living in the said Municipal area. The main aim of the research was to identify the causes and effects of the non-payment of residential property rates, and also to develop workable strategies to maximise the collection of residential property rates in order to ensure developmental growth sustenance, specifically in Mahikeng Municipal area. Related literature was reviewed on the non-financial viability of Municipalities, maintenance of public infrastructure, service delivery and Municipal development plans in establishing the relationship with non-payment of residential property rates. Four hypotheses were set to guide the research with two testing positive with high level of confidence using the chi square method of testing. The research methodology employed in the research was mainly quantitative where the results and findings obtained from the questionnaire were statistically analysed. The research revealed that: The Mahikeng Local Municipality has failed to find the right medium to send rates bills to clients on time, is not taking active responsibility to recover rates debts, does not provide quality service delivery and the reluctance by locals to pay their property rates. The effects thereof, are the inability of the Municipality to deliver effective and efficient services, lack of maintenance of public infrastructure and development in the area. By implementing various options such as email, sms and the post to send rates bills to property owners, by employing different payment options, for example debit orders, transfers, bank deposits and discounts for property owners and embarking on periodic public awareness campaigns in educating the community regarding the importance of payment of property rates could serve as effective mechanisms to address the non-payment of residential property rates faced by the Mahikeng Local Municipality.

This study examines the public debt, public debt service and economic growth nexus in Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa using time-series data from 1970 to 2017. This research provides empirical evidence to contribute, firstly, to the ongoing public policy debate regarding the dynamic relationship between public debt, public debt service and economic growth, and their causal relationship; and secondly, to the relative impact of domestic and foreign public debt on economic growth in the selected study countries. For this purpose, four empirical models were utilised and estimated using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) bounds to cointegration and the error correction ARDL-based causality test. Model 1 explored the impact of aggregate public debt on economic growth, while Model 2 investigated the relative impact of domestic and foreign public debt on economic growth. Model 3 examined the impact of public debt service on economic growth, whereas the causality between aggregate public debt and economic growth, and between public debt service and economic growth is tested in Model 4a and Model 4b, respectively. Results show that in Model 1, aggregate public debt has a positive impact on economic growth in Zambia but is negative in Zimbabwe and South Africa. In Model 2, domestic public debt negatively impacts economic growth in Zambia and Zimbabwe and positive impact in South Africa. In addition, foreign public debt has a positive impact on economic growth in Zambia and negative impact in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The results from Model 3 largely support a negative relationship between public debt service and economic growth in Zambia and Zimbabwe, and an insignificant relationship in South Africa. The causality results for Model 4a indicate that it is economic growth that drives public debt in all the study countries. Finally, no causal relationship between public debt service and economic growth was confirmed in all the study countries (Model 4b). / Economics / D. Phil. (Economics)

The financial crisis of 2007-2009 led to a large increase in the government debt of all advanced economies. In the United States, the debt burden reached levels not seen since the Second World War. In Europe, high fiscal stress evolved into a sovereign debt crisis. My thesis focuses on debt dynamics in advanced economies and the design of policies that can stabilize their fiscal burden. In the first chapter, I provide new evidence and theory on US debt dynamics and their relation with long-term growth forecasts. In the second chapter, I document a novel dataset on the maturity structure of sovereign debt of Euro Area (EA) countries and study the effect of the maturity composition on debt dynamics. Finally, in the third chapter, I analyze empirically the role of debt management in stabilizing the fiscal burden of countries in the EA.<p><p>Chapter 1: Sovereign Debt in the US and Growth Expectations<p><p>This chapter studies the effect of changes in expectations of long-term GDP growth on US government debt and deficits. Long-term growth expectations are an essential determinant of expected future revenue growth and fiscal solvency. I present evidence that US government debt and deficits are positively correlated with long-term GDP (and revenue) growth forecasts from the Congressional Budget Office between 1984 and 2012. This is robust to controlling for current growth and to using à-la-Kalman estimated forecasts for a longer time span. This stylized fact is novel in the macroeconomics literature and I develop a new model of government behavior that explains it.<p>My model features endogenous (forward-looking) purchasing behavior for the government. This distinguishes my model from standard macro theories that assume exogenous government purchases, or ad-hoc backward looking policy rules for government purchases. It builds on the recent ‘long-run risks’ literature by assuming shocks to the trend growth rate of total factor productivity. The model matches the observed positive correlation between fiscal deficits and the trend growth rate, based on the government’s desire to smooth public consumption over periods of higher (or lower) long-run productivity growth. <p><p>Chapter 2: Government Debt Maturity and Debt Dynamics in EA Countries<p><p>This chapter presents a new comprehensive database on sovereign debt stocks and yields, at all maturities, for six EA countries: Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Spain between 1991 and 2013. I constructed this database by combining information from different sources (treasuries, national central banks and statistical offices), on a security-by-security basis. A recent literature has shown the importance of debt maturity management in the US - e.g. Hall and Sargent (2011) - however, due to lack of data, this key issue remained unstudied for the EA. Thus, I use my database to study the effect of debt maturity management on the evolution of government debt in EA countries. <p>My main finding is that debt maturity also had an important effect in debt dynamics of the EA. The debt maturity structure affects debt dynamics because longer maturity shields the government budget from changes in interest rates. In general, interest rates in the EA have fallen since 1991 while treasuries in the region extended debt maturity. Thus, an increasing number of long-term bondholders experienced large capital gains. Counterfactual simulations show the impact of a different maturity structure on the evolution of debt and suggest that extending debt maturity in 2014 and 2015 would result in lower debt ratios by 2022. I also estimate the debt-to-GDP erosion induced by higher current and future inflation and find that inflation would lower the fiscal burden in EA countries much more than in the US.<p><p>Chapter 3: Quantifying the Role of Debt Management for Fiscal Self-Insurance in the EA<p><p>The last chapter provides evidence of debt management being an effective tool for protecting the government budget from fiscal spending shocks in the EA. In particular, I document that sovereign bonds of EA countries had a significantly lower real return in response to government spending shocks between 1991 and 2013. Importantly, longer bond maturity generally implied a larger drop in returns. This is in line with theories claiming that long-term debt provides fiscal self-insurance. However, my finding suggests that medium-term debt is more effective in hedging against spending shocks. <p>I identify government spending shocks in a Structural VAR model estimated with both aggregated quarterly fiscal data for the EA and stacked data from individual countries. I also use a simple FAVAR model to distinguish between common and idiosyncratic (country-specific) shocks and document that the former risk was hedged more effectively. The introduction of the Euro reduced the absorption of idiosyncratic shocks (relative to common shocks) by bond returns. However, the European debt crisis brought the degree of fiscal self-insurance against country-specific shocks back to pre-Euro levels. Finally, debt maturity seems to play a minor role in the absorption of country-specific shocks by the return on sovereign bonds. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Though sovereign debts are often viewed as risk-free assets, some extreme events may lead to the repudiation of these debts. A large literature has been devoted to the motivations of repayment and to the causes of default. The impact of wars, which may lead to the repudiation of sovereign debt, on sovereign bond prices has also been analyzed. However, the impact of other types of seldom occurring but dramatic events, which may lead to the repudiation of debts, on bond prices has been overlooked. My current research aims to analyze three of them: the repudiation of debts because of their alleged "odiousness", the introduction of common debt after a state's unification and the debt partition following the break-up of a country. Since the events under consideration don't happen frequently, the dissertation will rely on four historical examples: Cuba, Russia, Italy and Belgium. The time period considered is the 19th century. Based on a historical analysis and the set-up of an original database, this project determines the effects of these events on sovereign debt valorization, using an econometric approach.<p><p>The first part of the research estimates the risk premium required by investors to hold debts which could be denounced as odious. Bondholders could require a premium to compensate for the higher default risk due to the odious character of the debts. The paper quantifies the risk premium required by investors to hold debts which could be denounced as odious and it analyses the relation between the value of the government bond and extreme "odious debt" events. In order to identify if such a premium exists, I focus on a Cuban case study. Based on an original database of Cuban bonds, the paper reveals the existence of a risk premium of at least 200 basis points which penalises bonds issued by dictatorial regimes. The bond market "odious" shocks are provided by a Structural VAR analysis. In a second case study, my research analyses the Tsarist bonds of 1906 and the premium to hold despotic regime debt. The paper shows that the market required a premium despite the attempts made by the Russian government to present the loan as clean.<p><p>The second and third parts of my research look at the effects of state succession on the sovereign bonds market. They analyze respectively the two subsets of state succession: state unification and "country break-up". The second part of the dissertation provides an empirical study of sovereign debt integration and analyses the evolution of sovereign bond prices when several countries merge to become a "unified country" or when the probability of such an event exists. Based on an original database made of pre-unification and post-unification Italian bonds, the paper shows the impact of Italy's unification on the bonds. The analysis puts forward that prior to the unification in 1862, the bonds issued by the future parts of the kingdom reacted in an idiosyncratic way. Around the sovereign debt integration, the paper highlights a large risk increase for low-yield bonds. Using a break point analysis and a Dynamic Factor Model, the paper proves that until the late 1860's the financial market did not believe in Italy's Unification. The third part of my research analyzes the financial impact on state bonds of a country which faces a risk to break up. This paper provides an empirical analysis of the evolution of sovereign debt prices when a state breaks up, or when it faces such an event. Based on an original database of Dutch and Belgian bonds, this research shows the impact of Belgian independence in 1830 on the Belgium bonds. This article analyses two risk premiums which may affect the sovereign debt of a state: the first one is linked to the country break-up (or the probability that one may occur) and the second one is due to the instability experienced by the new country. This analysis puts forward a "country break-up" risk premium of 142 basis points. The role of the debt underwriter has also been highlighted in the case of Belgian independence. Financial markets required no "new country" risk premium for Belgian bonds which were underwritten by Rothschild, but the risk premium remained for the Belgian authorities. This was likely due to the role of Rothschild as underwriter whose reputation persuaded the market that the risk is low, but who charged a premium to the Belgian government for their services.<p> / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Doctorat en sciences sociales, politiques et économiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Doctorat en sciences sociales, politiques et économiques / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished