Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / 30% of the country's population are currently unemployed and this statistic is increasing steadily. Further deterioration of the South African economy and increased unemployment, is likely to increase social instability and continue to marginalise a major proportion of society. Global economic downturn as well as the crash of the Asian economies in the mid-1990's resulted in job losses for both the working class and middle class sectors of society. The literature however suggests that the effects of unemployment are likely to be experienced differently by working and middle class individuals. This reiterates the argument that the unemployed should not be perceived as a homogenous group. The study utilises a broad epistemological framework of social constructionism and employs the theoretical assumptions of Marxism as the theoretical basis for the research.

The Community Church of Pepperell in Pepperell, MA has a well-established pattern of fundraising events to support itself and its mission. Replicating the ubiquity of consumerism in American culture, buying and selling is the foundation of church activities, events, celebrations, and even worship itself. This project develops the concept of God’s Kingdom economy as it works to move this congregation, and perhaps others like it, from being controlled by the impulses of American consumerism. This transformation involves laying aside consumption for its own sake, rather using it to caring for our neighbors, serve, and share God’s love. Specialized worship services are created that incorporate the transformative power of testimonies and preaching as a way to reframe excessive church fundraising.

This study develops comprehensive full-sector macro-econometric models for the Nigerian economy with the aim of explaining and providing a long-term solution for the persistent growth-poverty divergence experienced by the country. The models are applied to testing the hypothesis of existing structural supply-side constraints versus demand-side constraints impeding the growth and development of the country. Structural inadequacies have been the major setback to the achievement of the developmental objectives in the Nigerian economy. The last four decades has revealed several macroeconomic instabilities that hinder much improvement in the performance of the economy. Much of these structural inadequacies have been blamed on the persistent poor governance experienced by the country over the years. The poor political leadership and instability, corruption and the mismanagement of the oil resources have halted an appropriate and sound economic policy that should have alleviated poverty among the majority of the population. A review of the historical performance of the Nigerian economy reveals significant socio-economic constraints as the predominant impediments to high and sticky levels of poverty in the economy. As such, a model of the Nigerian economy suitable for policy analysis needs to capture the long-run supply-side characteristics of the economy. A price block is incorporated to specify the price adjustment between the production or supply-side sector and real aggregate demand sector. The institutional characteristics with associated policy behaviour are incorporated through a public and monetary sector, whereas the interaction with the rest of the world is presented by a foreign sector, with specific attention given to the oil sector. The models are estimated with time-series data from 1970 to 2006 using the Engle-Granger two-step cointegration technique, capturing both the long-run and short-run dynamic properties of the economy. The full-sector models are subjected to a series of policy scenarios to evaluate the various options for government. It is evident from the policy options assessed in this study that there is a need for an improvement in the quality of government spending. Fiscal policy expansion should tend towards increasing the component of government expenditure that will lead to sustained growth and also an improvement in the standard of living of the citizens. In order to be able to reap the benefits of a positive external shock, there is a need to increase the level of competitiveness and the productive capacity of the country. Investment in basic infrastructure such as power and roads is very crucial at this stage of the Nigerian economy. There is an urgent need to refocus the government role in certain critical areas of the economy. Government institutions need to be strengthened by improving the coordination that exists within the government structures. The political environment needs to be more secure in order to attract more private investment. The maintenance of public order, ensuring property rights, a sound regulatory structure and also creating a framework that will increase the provision of public goods and services and the maintenance of infrastructure are urgent elements required in order to achieve the set macroeconomic objectives. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Economics / unrestricted

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

'Green' business is claimed by some South African retailers even though they lack well-founded and integrated sustainable, social, and environmental commitments. This is because no standards of greening exist for retail in South Africa. The purpose of this study is to explore, 'What constitutes green retail in the South African supermarket sector?' This required investigation into the sustainability of the companies' green business processes, social component of sustainability, and the existing state of the green retail sector. The five dominant supermarkets were selected to answer a questionnaire based on different environmental variables and principles. Interviewee responses were supplemented with publicly available company reports and these were then critiqued by allocating a level of commitment to sustainability of companies' green business processes, social considerations of sustainability, and establishing the current state of the green retail sector. Results show that within business processes, sustainable procurement is becoming increasingly accounted for through eco-labels and enterprise development programs. Distribution processes assist in verifying green claims and production. Various international and local sustainability programs are used to validate green efforts in the lack of national standards. Best practice frameworks are being utilised in the absence of local green standards and where limited, some are creating their own innovative solutions. Sustainability is a core focus at an executive level to some to ensure full integration of sustainability. Retailers may not necessarily pursue trends, but they have similar pressures that are often variably addressed. Although retailers' attempts to green their operations may not be standardised, the retail industry in South African has almost privatised sustainability and socio-economic development as they have superseded legislation to contribute to society and transform communities. It is an opportunity for retailers to take responsibility for their operations and in doing so create innovative solutions that address South Africa's environmental and social issues, in spite of the lack of green standards and governmental regulation, and in doing so become leadership companies that are accountable to their consumer base.

The first chapter analyzes the impact of gender quota regulation on women's participation in politics. Gender quotas are the main policy tools used to encourage participation in politics. A natural experiment in Spanish municipal elections is exploited to study the success of such reforms. Gender quotas are found to improve the number of women candidates, but due to strategic reaction from political parties, much fewer women are being elected. Political parties disproportionately allocate women to the lowest possible position while still complying with the law. Parties have a propensity to assign women candidates to positions where they have relatively low chance of being elected. There is also no shift in public policy toward spending preferred by women. The second chapter presents empirical evidence in support of the Leviathan model of government. In Spain, the number of politicians chosen in local elections depends on the population of the municipality. Using a data set that covers over two decades of municipal elections, I present two main results. First, there is an unusual concentration of municipalities (bunching) with reported populations just above the threshold that increases the number of local representatives. I present compelling evidence that elected officials manipulate population figures in advance of upcoming elections in order to maximize the size of the council. Second, I use machine learning techniques to construct an unbiased measure of population based on luminosity data and census population figures, and study which municipalities are more likely to misreport based on the quality of the democratic institutions. Based on those measures, I conclude that misreporting is more likely to happen in municipalities with higher turnout and less parties in their council. The final chapter studies the impact that World War II fatalities had on political preferences during the twentieth century in the United States. We document enlistment and fatalities at the county level and use this variation to study the hypothesis that fatalities permanently shifted U.S. political preferences. In particular, we test whether the proximate casualties theory, which states that voters punish incumbents in the short run after a war, affected United States counties after World War II. We conclude that there is not enough evidence in our analysis to determine that fatalities during World War II significantly impacted long term political preferences.

Modern writers see varied values in recreation. The necessity for recreation in a machine age has become widely recognized. Its many-sided contribution to good living is being clarified by a constangly increasing member of writers--sociologists, educators, physicians, philosophers, etc. It seams appropriate to this inquiry to consider what some of these writers say.

A series of happenlngs in Salt Lake City during the early years of the reoent depression strongly Indlcate that certain relief clients were, at that time, more or leas chronic trouble makers. They frequently threatened and sometimes inflicted bodily harm on social case workers; they inflicted riots, held protest meetings and wrote protest letters to state and national officials. A check-up on the addresses of these clients showed that the majority lived in the same or near-by areas.

The city of Logan, Utah, was first settled in 1859 and derives its name from an old Indian Chief named "Logan," who had befriended the early white settlers.

No description available.