South Africa is in need of foreign direct investment (FDI) to increase economic growth and alleviate unemployment and poverty. To succeed in obtaining this FDI, South Africa must compete with the rest of the world for the available FDI. The global economic outlook is currently still uncertain and the growth of advanced economies are slowing down while Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa continue to grow at a steady pace. South Africa, as part of Sub-Saharan Africa, should take advantage of this growth on the African continent as well as internationally. Although studies have been performed to ascertain the tax policies of countries, the role of taxation applied by countries and the effects of taxation on FDI, there have been few studies on the tax policies specifically in respect of withholding taxes on interest. The new South African withholding tax on interest, applicable to South African source interest payments to non-residents, has been proposed to be included in terms of sections 49A to 49H in the Income Tax Act (58 of 1962) and will become effective from 1 January 2015. These sections have been introduced to align the said withholding tax and the section 10(1)(h) interest exemption, applicable to normal income tax in respect of non-residents, to the withholding taxes on interest and interest exemptions applied globally. Attention should be focused on whether the aforementioned global alignment will be achieved with the introduction of this legislation as South Africa had previously applied a similar legislation called non-residents’ tax on interest (NRTI) which appeared to be unsuccessful. Determining whether this legislation has been aligned with global practice will provide useful insight into whether this new legislation will promote, stagnate or be indifferent to FDI in South Africa, while at the same time not eroding the tax base with overly generous exemptions. This study reviews and compares the taxes implemented globally specifically in relation to withholding taxes on interest in a selection of countries, namely the developing countries Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mozambique and Namibia and the developed countries Germany and Denmark. Other determinants which will also have an impact on the comparisons of these withholding taxes are, for example, normal and withholding tax interest exemptions and repo rates – all of which have been incorporated into this comparative study. Based on the literature reviewed and the comparative analysis, the study concludes that the South African withholding tax on interest is effectively designed to keep attracting foreign lending in order to remain competitive in international markets. It is further shown that the South African legislation in respect of the section 10(1)(h) blanket interest exemption is aligned to that of global practice. / MCom (South African and International Taxation), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

South Africa is in need of foreign direct investment (FDI) to increase economic growth and alleviate unemployment and poverty. To succeed in obtaining this FDI, South Africa must compete with the rest of the world for the available FDI. The global economic outlook is currently still uncertain and the growth of advanced economies are slowing down while Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa continue to grow at a steady pace. South Africa, as part of Sub-Saharan Africa, should take advantage of this growth on the African continent as well as internationally. Although studies have been performed to ascertain the tax policies of countries, the role of taxation applied by countries and the effects of taxation on FDI, there have been few studies on the tax policies specifically in respect of withholding taxes on interest. The new South African withholding tax on interest, applicable to South African source interest payments to non-residents, has been proposed to be included in terms of sections 49A to 49H in the Income Tax Act (58 of 1962) and will become effective from 1 January 2015. These sections have been introduced to align the said withholding tax and the section 10(1)(h) interest exemption, applicable to normal income tax in respect of non-residents, to the withholding taxes on interest and interest exemptions applied globally. Attention should be focused on whether the aforementioned global alignment will be achieved with the introduction of this legislation as South Africa had previously applied a similar legislation called non-residents’ tax on interest (NRTI) which appeared to be unsuccessful. Determining whether this legislation has been aligned with global practice will provide useful insight into whether this new legislation will promote, stagnate or be indifferent to FDI in South Africa, while at the same time not eroding the tax base with overly generous exemptions. This study reviews and compares the taxes implemented globally specifically in relation to withholding taxes on interest in a selection of countries, namely the developing countries Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mozambique and Namibia and the developed countries Germany and Denmark. Other determinants which will also have an impact on the comparisons of these withholding taxes are, for example, normal and withholding tax interest exemptions and repo rates – all of which have been incorporated into this comparative study. Based on the literature reviewed and the comparative analysis, the study concludes that the South African withholding tax on interest is effectively designed to keep attracting foreign lending in order to remain competitive in international markets. It is further shown that the South African legislation in respect of the section 10(1)(h) blanket interest exemption is aligned to that of global practice. / MCom (South African and International Taxation), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This research study provides a view of the relationship between organizational leaders and relationship executives of financial institutions and their exchange partners. It does so by analyzing data on the networking efforts of 20 executive directors in qualitative interviews and 124 relationship executives in research questionnaires. Network marketing within the financial services sector is becoming increasingly important. We proposed a model that seeks to offer an explanation of Executive network marketing in financial institutions in LDCs where the market system is underdeveloped. The proposed model identified four categories being: firm characteristics, Executives’ personal contact groups, Executives’ business contact groups and issues of commitment and trust in exchange relationships. Multiple factor analysis established the regression model as significant in establishing a formal relationship between the dependent variable (network marketing) and the independent variables (firm characteristics, business contact, personal contact and commitment and trust). It was confirmed that there are differences in Executives’ level of network marketing among the different age groups. Also there were significant differences in the network marketing of the Executives with regard to their level of education. It was observed that there were significant differences in the network marketing of the Executives with respect of their fields of study. Finally it was observed that owner managers were more involved in network marketing than the professional managers and those in partnerships. Not only did the study confirm the research model, but it also revealed that, to a considerable extent, network marketing is practiced by the Executives in the financial services sector in Ghana. The study concluded that business contact networks are the most effective of the Executives’ network marketing in financial services sector in Ghana. It is therefore important that state policies are directed towards enhancing the business environment within the financial services sector. Government should desist from being a regulator and a player in the same market.

This study investigated factors affecting housing finance supply in Nigeria. Housing finance is a major factor determining the quality and tenure of housing consumption, the overall financial portfolio of the public and the stability and effectiveness of the financial system. In both developed and emerging economies, sovereign governments have intervened in the markets by setting up institutions characterised by a significant degree of regulation and segmentation from the rest of the financial markets and very often with governments providing subsidised housing finance. Attempts were made to develop an empirical model to reveal the underlying factors affecting housing finance in Nigeria. Time series data from sampled Universal Money Deposit Banks (UMDBs) balance sheets between 2003 and 2007 were used to assess the ability of the financial institutions to engage in long-term lending. Additional instruments in form of questionnaire, for the sectoral allocation of loans and advances by these financial institutions were employed to gather information from Corporate Banking / Loans and Advances Managers coupled with unstructured interviews. Supplementary questionnaires were directed to the users of housing finance at the household level as control for validity to the research findings. Applying a multiple regression approach, the model identified that housing finance supply in Nigeria is significantly driven by clusters of factors related to share capital and the reserves of the financial institutions. It is closely observed that housing finance models in the developed economies, which are largely financed by deposit liabilities, cannot be wholly adopted in the emerging economies. The implication for practice therefore is that financial institutions in the emerging economies must adequately increase their capital base for effective housing finance supply and introduce mortgage products with long-term tenure to actively mobilise resources for mortgage lending.

This thesis documents, using an unbalanced panel of Top 1000 World banks with observations for 2005 - 2009, three main aspects related to cost and profit efficiency in banking. First, it established that there is no correlation between a bank's rank in the Top and its rank given by the efficiency scores. However, the size of the banks plays a positive role on the cost efficiency of the institution, big banks having higher cost efficiencies than small banks. Conversely, the profit efficiency is equal across different sizes. Second, it verified that for 2005 - 2009 there is no evidence that banks from the developed countries are more efficient than banks from emerging economies. This finding is further supported by the third aspect, which shows that banks originating in the developed economies, with large exposures to more sophisticated banking products, have been hit the hardest by the financial crisis. However the banks managed to shrink their cost inefficiency while losing efficiency on the revenue side. The post crisis, 2009, proved to be a year in which banks across countries and regions converged in terms of efficiency and plateaued at about 10% and 25% for cost and profit inefficiency respectively.

Purpose – The purpose of this master thesis is to examine factors influencing green consumption and to explain the moderating effect of market maturity on these factors in developed and emerging markets.Design/methodology/approach – In this research the pragmatism epistemology was employed as the scientific perspective of the current research. Deductive reasoning has been selected as scientific approach. The formulation of hypotheses, the collection and analysis of the data were based on and derived from existing theories. In line with deductive approach the collected data was analyzed quantitatively within cross-sectional time horizon. SSPS program was applied to process the collected research data and present the research results. The data was collected via online survey (Google Forms) in Russia and Sweden as well as credible and reliable secondary resources.Findings – Based on correlation and multiple regression analysis it was found that factor perceived consumer effectiveness positively (Beta=0.227) and significantly (Sig.<0.05) influences green consumption among young people in Sweden. Price is determined to affect negatively (Beta=-0.279) and significantly (Sig.<0.05) green consumption among young people in Sweden. Perceived consumer effectiveness positively (Beta=0.225) and significantly (Sig.<0.05) influences green consumption among young people in Russia. The presence of moderating effect of market maturity was not revealed within the conducted research. That means the level of development of countries (in case of Sweden and Russia) does not make a significant influence on the association between studied factors and green consumption among young people. Perceived consumer effectiveness is determined to be the main driving factor which pushes the younger generation toward sustainable consumption both in Sweden and Russia.Research limitations – the first limitation relates to the size of the sample. Although the sample of 100 respondents for each country (Sweden and Russia) was considered adequate, still a larger sample size could have provided more heterogonous findings and might have led to a different conclusion. Another limitation considers geographical and industrial boundaries. The research applies the theoretical model to the context of only two particular countries, namely, Sweden and Russia by focusing on consumption of green products from FMCG industry. With this regard, the findings of the study might not be fully suitable for other emerging and developed countries or other industries. Also, the application of non-probability sampling limited the authors to add more validity to the research. The last limitation is such a phenomena as socially desirable responding or response biases that means a tendency to choose the desirable response or the most moderate response.Practical implications – The findings ensure a better understanding of the content of moderating effect of market maturity and explain more in details how particular factors influence green consumption in emerging and developed markets. The model conceptualized by the authors is supposed to be a good basis for future researches aimed at examining moderating effect of market maturity on relationship between green consumption and factors influencing it in other emerging and developed markets besidesRussia and Sweden. In practice a special emphasis on perceived consumer effectiveness by the companies which market green products and target young consumers could helpthem to supply their products more successfully both in developed and/or emerging countries. Particularly, they need create a perception among potential consumers that buying green products contributes to sustainability and solution of environmental problems by elaborating particular strategies. As the research revealed a negative and significant relation between price and green consumption on the developed market it is important that managers consider price policy while marketing green products among young generation in developed countries.

Estudamos a criptografia RSA como uma importante aplicação dos números primos e da aritmética modular. Apresentamos algumas sugestões de atividades relacionadas ao tema a serem desenvolvidas em sala de aula nas séries finais do ensino fundamental / We studied RSA cryptography as an important application to prime numbers and modular arithmetic. We present some suggestions of activities related to the subject to be developed in classrooms of the final years of elementary school vii

The rise of market globalization creates challenges for business executives seeking to pursue foreign direct investment (FDI) in least developed countries (LDC), such as Afghanistan. Multinational corporate (MNC) executives need strategies that will improve the timely delivery of minerals for mining projects in LDCs. Guided by the force field analysis theory, the purpose of this holistic, single-case study was to explore the strategies that 5 MNC executives in Beijing, China, used to improve the timely delivery of minerals associated with the Aynak copper mine project in Afghanistan. Semistructured interviews were used to elicit detailed narratives from MNC executives about their experiences to develop strategies for mining projects in LDCs. A review of company documents, as well as member-checking of initial interview transcripts, helped to bolster the trustworthiness of final interpretations. Study results included 2 themes. Theme 1 was determinants of mine investment strategies in LDCs that included an exploration of driving forces, restraining forces, neutral forces, and the effect of those forces. Theme 2 was FDI strategies for copper mine projects in LDCs that included the comparison of cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy, and combination of cost leadership and differentiation strategies. By implementing a cost leadership strategy and best practices, MNC executives were able to achieve greater success to improve timely delivery of minerals associated with FDI copper mine projects in LDCs. Social implications include ongoing efforts of Afghan government leaders to implement effective economic policies that decrease unemployment while reducing poverty.

The United Nations category Least Developed country (LDC) was created in 1971 to ameliorate conditions in countries the UN identified as the poorest of the poor. Its administration and operation within UN development discourse has not been explored previously in academic analysis. This thesis explores this rich archive of development discourse. It seeks to situate the LDC category as a vehicle that both produces and is a product of development discourse, and uses gender analysis as a critical tool to identify the ways in which the LDC category discourse operates. The thesis draws on Foucauldian theory to develop and use the concept ‘technologies of knowledge’, which places the dynamics of LDC discourse into relief. Three technologies of knowledge are identified: LDC policy, classification through criteria, and data. The ways each of these technologies of knowledge operates are explored through detailed readings of over thirty years of UN policy documents that form the thesis’s primary source material. A central question within this thesis is: If the majority of the world’s poor are women, where are the women in the policy about the countries that are the poorest of the poor? In focusing the analysis on the representation of women in LDCs, I place women at the centre of the analytic stage, as opposed to the marginal position I have found they occupy within LDC discourse. Through this analysis of the reductionist representations of LDC women, I explore the gendered dynamics of development discourse. Exploring the operation of these three technologies of knowledge reveals some of the discursive boundaries of UN LDC category discourse, particularly through its inability to incorporate gender analysis. The discussion of these three technologies of knowledge – policy, classification through criteria, and data – is framed by discussions of development and gender. The discussion on development positions this analysis within post-development critiques of development policy, practice and theory. The discussion on gender positions this analysis within the trajectory of postmodern and postcolonial influenced feminist engagements with development as a theory and praxis, particularly with debates about the representation of women in the third world. This case study of the operation of development discourse usefully highlights gendered dynamics of discursive ways of knowing.

Scalar (heat or mass) transfer plays an important role in many industrial and engineering applications. Difficulties in experimental measurements means that there is limited detailed information available, especially in the near-wall region. Prediction in simple flows is well documented and the basis for development of many Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models. This is, however, not the case for scalar transfer, especially when the Prandtl (Pr) or Schmidt number (Sc) is much greater than unity. In complex flows that involve separation and reattachment, the scalar transfer coefficient is significantly different to that of fully developed turbulent flow. The purpose of this Thesis is to investigate high Prandtl number (Pr ≥ 10) scalar transfer in fully developed (pipe) and disturbed (sudden pipe expansion) turbulent flow using CFD. Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) is the most straight-forward approach to the solution of turbulent flows with scalar transfer. However, this technique is computationally intensive because all turbulent scales need to be resolved by the simulation. Large eddy simulation (LES) is a compromise compared to DNS. Instead of resolving all spatial scales, LES resolves only the large-scales with the small-scales being accounted for by a subgrid-scale model. Chapter 2 details the mathematical, numerical and computational details of LES with scalar transfer. From this, an optimized and highly scalable parallel LES solver was developed based on state-of-the-art LES subgrid-scale models and numerical techniques. Chapter 3 provides a verification of the LES solver for fully developed turbulent pipe flow. Reynolds numbers between Re = 180 and 1050 were simulated with a single Prandtl number of Pr = 0.71. Detailed turbulent statistics are provided for Re = 180, 395 and 590 with varying grid resolution for each Reynolds number. The results from these simulations were compared to established experimental and numerical databases of fully developed turbulent pipe and channel flows. The LES solver was shown to be in good agreement with the prior work with most discrepancies being accounted for by only reporting the resolved (large-scale) component directly reported from the LES results. For a Prandtl number close to unity, the mechanisms of turbulent transport and scalar transfer are similar. The near-wall region was shown to be dominated by large-scale sweeping structures that bring high momentum and scalar concentrations to the near-wall region. These are convected parallel to the wall as diffusion mechanisms act to transfer this to the wall where dissipation takes effect. An ejection structure then acts to transport the resultant low momentum, scalar depleted fluid back to the bulk to be replenished and continue the cycle. As the Prandtl number increases, molecular diffusivity decreases relative to viscosity, and the mechanisms of scalar transfer differ to those at Pr = 0.71. This is investigated in Chapter 4 using simulations at Re = 180, 395 and 590, with detailed statistics at Re = 395 for Pr = 0.71, 5, 10, 100 and 200. Where possible the results are compared to other numerical work and the LES solver was shown to accurately resolve the higher Prandtl number flows. There are marked variations in the scalar transfer with increasing Prandtl number as the turbulent scalar transfer becomes concentrated closer to the wall and dominated by large-scale turbulent structures. Sweeping structures are still responsible for bringing the high scalar concentrations towards the wall, however, high Prandtl number scalars are unable to completely diffuse to the wall in the time that the structure is convected parallel to the wall adjacent to the diffusive sublayer. Therefore, most of the high Prandtl number scalar is returned to the bulk via the ejection structure rather than being dissipated at the wall. Chapter 5 uses the sudden pipe expansion (SPE) to investigate disturbed turbulent flow for an inlet Reynolds numbers of Reb = 15600 and a diameter ratio of E = 1.6. These simulation parameters were chosen to match the experimental LDA measurements of Stieglmeier et al. (1989). The LES results for a range of grid resolutions were shown to be in very good agreement with the experimental work. From the LES results it was determined that the fluctuations in the wall shear stress are important in the near-wall turbulent transport. These are the result of eddies originating from the free shear layer down-washing and impinging upon the wall. This is a more effective sweeping mechanism than that observed for the fully developed turbulent pipe flow. Despite the down-wash structures impinging upon the wall, a viscous sublayer still exists in the reattachment region, albeit much thinner than the fully developed turbulent pipe flow further downstream. Using the same Reynolds number and diameter ratio, scalar transfer simulations were also undertaken in the SPE with Prandtl numbers of Pr = 0.71, 5, 10, 100 and 200. An applied scalar flux was used to heat the expanded pipe wall. The LES results are in agreement with experimental Nusselt numbers from Baughn et al. (1984) for Pr = 0.71. The disturbed turbulent flow enhances the scalar transfer and this is the result of down wash events transporting low (cold) scalar from the inlet pipe to the near-wall of the expanded pipe. This cools the heated wall and enhances localized scalar transfer downstream of the expansion. A diffusive sublayer still exists in the reattachment region within the viscous sublayer for Prandtl numbers greater than unity. As the Prandtl number increases the diffusivity decreases relative to viscosity and near-wall scalar transfer enhancement decreases as the diffusion time-scales increase.