No description available.

The South African Schools Act (Act o 84 of 1996) and PubIic Finance Management Act (Act No.1 of 1999) are the most important legislative frameworks in financial school management. Principals and other stakeholders still find it difficult to comply with these Acts and this makes it difficult for them to manage their school finances effectively and efficiently. The purpose of this study was to explore the extent of the effectiveness of the EMG's support and training programmes in addressing the challenges that principals are faced with in the management of school finances. In addition the study aimed at establishing the reasons why schools still find it difficult to manage their finances well and why they are not complying with the relevant Acts. The empirical study followed a qualitative (interpretive) research approach. The interpretive approach allowed the researcher to interact closely with the participants to gain insight and form a clear understanding as to how effective the EMG is towards addressing the challenges facing principals in the management of school finances. Firstly, twenty six (26) school principals who were purposefully selected from ninety six (96) schools in the Rekopantswe Area Office participated in the open - ended survey. Secondly, five (5) school principals from twenty six who participated in the first round of data collection and the EMG, participated in the interviews. Three school principals were males. two were females and the EMG coordinator was a female. Finally, six participants were interviewed, three males and three female .. Through this study, the researcher established that the Department of Education is not doing enough to address the challenges that principals are faced with in managing school finances. Finance training programmes are not relevant to the schools' needs. There is a need for a qualified full - time treasurer in all schools. The general view of stakeholders, particularly principals, is that the Rekopantswe Area Office is not playing an effective role in addressing the challenges racing principals in the management of school finances. Therefore, it is recommended that training workshops should be based primarily on the areas of concern discovered during the interrogation of school monthly reports and the audited finance statements. The blanket approach to conducting training workshops does not necessarily address challenges that principals are faced with. With the implementation of focused training workshops, school management and GB members will be equipped with the necessary competency needed to improve the situation at school and the economy of the country. The study further recommends collaborative work, teamwork and cooperation among schools. Schools should not work in isolation: they should share information amongst the committees for development purposes. / Thesis (M.Ed) North-West University, Mafikeng campus, 2011

<p> Stakeholders are increasingly insistent that companies increase firm value. The problem is that stakeholders of financial services firms are unable to accurately determine firm value. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the accuracy of 4 valuation models in predicting the market value of equity of commercial finance companies. Study participating companies were 8 listed U.S. or Canadian commercial finance companies. The theoretical constructs of the study included the accuracy of valuation models, modern portfolio theory, and the correlation of book value of equity to market value of equity. Financial information on participating companies obtained from public filings were input data in 4 valuation models. Multiple regression analysis of valuation model results and book value of equity (the predictor variables) were used to determine the accuracy of the models in predicting the market value of equity (response variable). The findings of the study showed that all 4 valuation models in combination with the book value of equity were statistically significant predictors of the market value of equity of the participating companies at the <i>p</i> &lt; .05 level. However, the dividend discount model (DDM) and residual income model (RIM) were statistically more accurate without the combination of book value of equity (<i>p</i> = .000 and <i>p</i> = .000, respectively) than the discounted cash flow and risk-adjusted discounted cash flow valuation models (<i>p</i> = .371 and <i>p</i> = .904, respectively). The results of this study contribute to positive social change by providing business leaders an ability to measure the effectiveness of their actions in creating firm value. Corporate social responsibility activities correlate to value creation for firms that engage in promoting employee welfare and other stakeholder welfare.</p>

Active portfolio management is driven by the trade-off between the expected return and the associated risks. In light of the most recent extensions of Black-Litterman model, we stick to a Bayesian approach for the construction of active fixed income portfolios. Within the investment grade universe, the equilibrium returns are approximated by the yield levels implied by the market prices and these are blended together with investment views. In parallel, risk factors are preferred over asset class risk modelling. Affinity towards risk factors rather than asset classes is primarily linked with two elements; the reduction of the dimensionality of the risk estimation problem and the intuitive way in which portfolio exposures per risk factor can be expressed as performance drivers. The first empirical part of the thesis deals with the optimisation of a relative to an index portfolio where the centre of gravity is the chosen benchmark. The first ingredient of the optimisation is the blend of the yield advantage over the index and the expectations for excess returns over the index emanating from the investment views. The second ingredient is the risk estimated by a multifactor risk model. Then, a set of relative to the index investment grade portfolios is constructed. The second empirical part investigates whether there is scope to blend the multifactor risk framework with more sophisticated risk estimation techniques such as resampling. Tail risk estimated by block bootstrapping on the risk exposures of real actively managed portfolio exposures vs. the Barclays Capital US Aggregate index is compared with the parametric and exponentially weighted moving average risk model findings. The multifactor risk estimate using block bootstrapping exhibits better performance than the alternatives tested but struggles to capture the out of sample extremes. Finally, the third empirical part aims to enhance the allocation model by taking advantage of the findings of the second empirical part. The blending mechanism of equilibrium returns and investment views, which are expressed as optimisation constraints, is performed with the aid of a numerically approximated returns’ distribution. The resampled distribution deviates from the normality assumption imposed initially in the Black-Litterman model and forms a more realistic basis for the evaluation of investment views and for the portfolio construction against tail risk measures such as value at risk and conditional value at risk.

No description available.

This study examines the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) and the effect of FDI on trade in a panel of bilateral outward FDI stocks of 19 OECD countries in Turkey between 1982 and 2007. Employing a knowledge-capital model, this study finds that joint national incomes, per capita difference, investment liberalisation and the cost of exporting to Turkey have significant effects on FDI in Turkey. In addition, the prospect of European Union membership, government stability, infrastructure, bilateral exchange rate, exchange rate volatility and openness to trade play an important role in determining the amount of FDI in Turkey. Moreover, this study finds that high relative unit labour costs and corruption provide stimuli to FDI. Using an augmented gravity model to investigate the relationship between FDI and imports, this study finds that outward FDI stocks are positively related to the exports. Overall, the empirical results indicate that FDI in Turkey is mainly motivated by market access and sensitive to the quality of institutions.

During the last two centuries the developed world experienced a persistent increase in life expectancy. Although past trends suggests that life expectancy will continue to increase, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the future evolution of mortality. In addition, past mortality improvements have not been shared equally across the population, resulting in a widening of socio-economic inequalities in mortality. The uncertainty and socio-economic variability of life expectancy pose a challenge for the design of pension systems and the management of longevity risk in pension funds and annuity portfolios. This thesis is devoted to the investigation of the trends and financial implications of socio-economic differences in mortality. It comprises three parts. The first part introduces new modelling techniques for the quantification of socio-economic mortality differentials in aggregate and cause-specific mortality, which are applied in the study of the relationship between mortality and deprivation in the English population. The second part evaluates the suitability of several multipopulation stochastic mortality models for assessing basis risk in longevity hedges and provides guidelines on how to use these models in practical situations. Finally, the third part introduces new modelling tools which aim to permit a more effective and widespread use of stochastic mortality models.

This dissertation consists of three empirical studies about the informational content of options trading on subsequent equity returns and around major corporate events, such as mergers and acquisitions, and bankruptcies. The first chapter examines the informational content of options trading on acquirer announcement returns. I show that implied volatility spread predicts positively on the cumulative abnormal return (CAR), and implied volatility skew predicts negatively on the CAR. The predictability is much stronger around actual merger and acquisition (M&A) announcement days, compared with pseudo-event days. The prediction is weaker if pre-M&A stock price has incorporated part of the information, but stronger if acquirer’s options trading is more liquid. Finally, I find that higher relative trading volume of options to stock predicts higher absolute CARs. The relation also exists among the target firms. In the second chapter, I reassess the presence of pre- bankruptcy-filing informed and insider trades by examining the information content of options trading before bankruptcy announcements. I find that bankruptcy filing returns are not significantly related to pre-filing insider stock trading. However, filing returns are significantly negatively related to pre-filing insider and informed options trading. The informational content of options trading reduces with options illiquidity and the amount of information impounded into pre-filing stock prices. In the third chapter, I use data on signed option volume to study which components of option volume predict returns and resolve the apparent inconsistency in the literature. I find no evidence that trades related to synthetic short positions in the underlying stocks contain more information than trades related to synthetic long positions. Purchases of calls that open new positions are the strongest predictor of returns, followed by call sales that close out existing purchased call positions. The signed O/S measures also predict announcement returns for both earnings announcements and unscheduled corporate events. Overall the results indicate that the role of options in providing embedded leverage is the most important channel why options trading predict stock returns. / published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The 2008 financial crisis had a significant impact on financial institutions. Banks have been in the limelight when some of them were liquidated and pensions funds have not been immune to the effects of the financial crisis. In the wake of the financial crisis, governments, regulators and political commentators have pointed an accusing finger at the securitization market - even in the absence of a detailed statistical and economic analysis. The eight years leading up to 2008 saw a rapid growth in the use of securitization by UK banks. We aim to identify the reasons that contributed to this rapid growth. The time period (2000 to 2010) covered by our study is noteworthy as it covers the pre-financial crisis credit boom, the peak of the financial crisis and its aftermath. We also investigate how the banks have gone about their fund-raising in support of their investment without signalling the value of the bank to the investors. This involves critical financing decisions about their main financing sources: Debt and equity issuance. We attempt to establish which decision banks have taken in the recent years. We do this by analysing financial data of banks in the US for the period 2001 to 2011. We examine how banks choose between the financing instruments available at a given time and in different financial contexts. This provides evidence regarding the difference between financing options available for investment opportunities that banks have at a given time. Thus, we show that internal finance is preferred to external finance, and that the theory regarding the impact of asymmetric information holds for banks on financing decisions as modelled by Myers and Majluf (1984). The steep drop in financial markets in 2008 coupled with the ongoing economic recession has also posed immediate challenges for pensions funds. We therefore consider how safe the pension funds are in the current period of high stock market volatility. We use the case of the Dutch pension funds since it is ranked to be the best managed pension funds in the world. The pension risk for the firms together with the market risk will give an idea of the impact of market volatility on pension asset allocation. It is expected that most firms who allocated a large percentage of their assets to equity were negatively affected by the stock market crash. Hence, pension funds are safe investing elsewhere other than in equities despite the high returns.

This event study of the stock market analyzes the effect of layoff announcements on common stock prices. The analysis finds that, on average, stock prices have a negative reaction to layoff announcements. However, for the month following the announcement, stocks have positive abnormal returns in effect equalling the negative abnormal returns surrounding the event day. The study also addresses the question of whether the business cycle influences the reaction in the stock market to layoff announcements. The findings suggest that there is a business cycle influence. The layoff announcements are also categorized and analyzed by several other criteria. First announcements are found to carry much more negative information than additional announcements. Plant closing layoff announcements report a more negative reaction. Different industry types are found to react uniquely to the layoff announcement and the stated reason by management for the layoff has little influence on the stock market reaction.