Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has grown very rapidly over the last decade. Demand for light vehicles has rapidly increased in this period, albeit from a very low base. Growing demand is almost entirely supplied by the import of used vehicles from the developed world. This has led to an enormous automotive trade deficit in the region where, apart from South Africa, there is almost no domestic production. The dissertation establishes the trends and scale of automotive demand in SSA and then considers the question of whether and how the region can begin to meet this booming demand by developing its own industry. Despite limited industrialisation levels and relatively small domestic markets, some larger countries, such as Nigeria and Kenya, are putting policies in place to encourage domestic production. However, if countries follow individual national strategies it is unlikely that any will have sufficient market scale or investment levels to become sustainable automotive producers. A regional automotive strategy needs to be adopted in SSA in order to attract large scale productive investment.

The scale is a fundamental yet controversial concept in human geography. Among diverse views over scale, this thesis draws insights from the process-based approach of scale jumping. It is a key notion to understand scale as a process, yet few explorations have been made on making use of its methodological values. Thus this thesis seeks to elaborate the notion by redeveloping it as an analytical framework. Four key elements are therefore concerned: (a) actors and their purposes; (b) directions; (c) approaches; and (d) outcomes. These elements form a framework to investigate the rescaling process of economic space in China. Conventional studies suggest that in the context of global competition, the role of state in scale (re)production has changed from a passive to an active actor. In China, where the state plays an active role in facilitating the economy, different levels of state actors, such as government officials and institutions, are involved in the (re)production of scale. Using the production of Shenshan Special Cooperation Zone (SSCZ) as a case study, the abovementioned four elements are investigated. Specifically, there are three research questions: (a) why do local governments rescale their economy? (b) How do local governments build SSCZ? And (c) what is the outcome of rescaling through SSCZ? The qualitative research method is used to collect data and other information for this research. This includes desktop searches and interviews of businessmen, planners, government officials, and local residents. Through a detailed investigation of the production of SSCZ, this research reveals the role of local governments, their intentions for rescaling, the approaches they used, and the outcomes of the rescaling

This dissertation consists of three essays studying economic agents with non-standard reactions to information. The standard model is often inadequate because it permits neither inattention nor ambiguity aversion. This dissertation provides both pure and applied theoretical analyses of these two phenomena. The first essay models an agent who has a limited capacity to pay attention to information and thus conditions her actions on a coarsening of the available information. An optimally inattentive agent chooses both her coarsening and her actions by constrained maximization of an underlying subjective expected utility preference relation. The main result axiomatically characterizes the conditional choices of actions by an agent that are necessary and sufficient for her behavior to be seen as if it is the result of optimal inattention. The agent's utility index, cognitive constraint and prior are uniquely identified. The second essay analyzes the implications of advertising in a model where consumers are optimally inattentive. Firms compete by choosing both prices and advertising levels. Consumers easily observe price but have a limited capacity to pay attention to information about quality. Advertisements increase consumer capacity for attention. An increase in capacity for attention results in more information processed by each consumer, which raises the likelihood that a high quality good is purchased but leads to an increased price. An exogenous decrease in the cost of advertising has a positive impact on equilibrium price but an ambiguous effect on equilibrium profit and surplus. Advertising generates some effects documented in the literature through a single mechanism. The third essay studies strategic voting when voters have pure common values but exhibit Ellsberg-type behavior as modeled by maxmin expected utility preferences. The Condorcet Jury Theorem states that given subjective expected utility maximization and common values, the equilibrium probability that the correct candidate wins goes to one as the size of the electorate goes to infinity. In contrast, this essay provides sufficient conditions so that the equilibrium probability of the correct candidate winning the election is bounded above by one half in at least one state. As a consequence, there is no equilibrium in which information aggregates.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves [117]-124). / This research investigates the relationship between economic well-being and attitudes to race amongst its respondents who took part in a survey known as the Cape Area Study (CAS) in 2005. In this inquiry, economic well-being is measured in two ways, by (household) income level and living conditions, the latter by means of a Living Coalitions Index (LCI), created by the author. The degree to which these two measures are able to explain variability in attitudes to race in the respondent sample is investigated. The specific aspect of attitude to race focused upon in this investigation is amenability to racial integration, and is measured by means of the Amenability to Racial Integration Index (ARII), also constructed by the author. Aside from the chief explanatory element of economic well-being, the degree of influence of other factors on attitude to race such as gender, age, education and employment status are also explored.

In this dissertation, we endeavoured to investigate the relationship between mental health and labour market changes in South Africa. We started by understanding the relationship between the aggregate CESD-10 and labour market status and then explored whether this aggregate relationship holds true for each of the three mental health factors that make up the CESD-10 score. Using data from the National Income Dynamics Study, waves 1-5, we documented increasing mental health symptoms with employed to other states of unemployment. This follows for somatic symptoms, depressed affect and positive affect, but the source driving the effects differs between factors and with the CESD-10 as well. We found that those who are NEA suffer to a greater extent in positive affect than in the other two factors relative to the employed. For those who are unemployed (discouraged), we see they also experience the strongest detrimental effect to their positive affect relative to the employed. However, they experience lower depressed affect scores relative to the employed. Those who are unemployed (strict), meanwhile, experience greater depressed affect scores out of the three factors when compared to the employed. As such, we expect to see an average increase in depressive symptoms classifications among those moving from employed to NEA statuses. We can also expect an average increase in depressed affect disorder classifications among those moving from employed to NEA labour force status. Likewise, we can expect higher positive affect across the five waves among those moving from a employed to NEA status. We find that, after controlling for observed individual characteristics and utilizing the panel structure of the data by allowing for individual specific fixed effects, negative labour market shifts have a significant negative impact on mental health. The sub-group analysis shows that this has a particularly adverse effect on black people and males.

South Africa's reintegration into the global economy post-1994 has not produced the expected levels of industrialisation and growth-enhancing structural transformation that has traditionally been achieved by developed countries in the past. South Africa faces the triple challenge of poverty, inequality and unemployment and needs structural growth that is inclusive and sustainable. However, trying to emulate the traditional structural transformative growth paths that developed countries have followed previously, will prove unsuccessful due to changes in the global economy. This paper, therefore, argues that an alternate growth path is needed, especially given that global warming and the effects of climate change act as a threat multiplier to economic growth and development. Furthermore, the world economy is shifting away from fossil fuels and resource depletion towards greener technologies and products. South Africa needs to adopt a growth path that accounts for the current climate and global context to ensure sustainable and inclusive growth for future competitiveness. This paper, using the Economic Complexity Methodology, identifies green industries that South Africa is best positioned to develop and grow given the existing knowledge and capabilities within the economy. A case study is conducted on the wind-power industry which proves to be a promising option given South Africa's current economic climate and the potential for employment creation. This paper aims to highlight the opportunities for the development of green industries in South Africa and the limitations that hinder this potential.

This study examines the changing character of racial discrimination against black workers within the context of capitalism. The central hypothesis is that racial discrimination against black workers has changed significantly over the past 10 to 15 years given the political and economic contrad

The research considers the question: What can emerging market economies do to leverage sustainable growth opportunities from resource constrained, involuntary migrant entrepreneurs? It explores the positive economic impact that involuntary migrant entrepreneurs have made in an emerging market economy, South Africa, through the establishment of sustainable businesses. The objective is to understand the underlying enablers and constraints that facilitated the establishment of such businesses historically and to use them to develop a model that might be implemented by public and private institutions to maximise the economic benefits that groups of migrant entrepreneurs can deliver. It took the form of an inductive study of behavioural attributes to which a critical realist epistemology has been applied, using network theory and the lens of “desirable difficulties” within the context of social, economic and migration capital. The research was inspired by the work of Elizabeth and Robert Bjork (1996 and 2015) and extends the concept of desirable disabilities into the realm of societal “disabilities” that have been overcome by resource constrained migrant entrepreneurs, to accumulate the necessary social, knowledge and economic capital (Bourdieu, 1985) to establish sustainable businesses. The theoretical contribution of the research is to take the involuntary migrant debate beyond the "refugee as burden" paradigm, by focusing on constrained, involuntary migrants as potential economic contributors through: 1. A theoretical proposition that the legal, knowledge, language and economic capital required by constrained migrant entrepreneurs to leverage the enabling disabilities that they have and to establish their locus of power, is augmented by additional "migration capital", an offshoot of mobility capital, which originates from the interactions within and between the migrant group networks. 2. The development of a model, based on migration capital, which may be used by emerging market countries to maximise the economic growth opportunities that severely resource constrained entrepreneurs can offer. The model utilises a newly defined form of capital, namely migration capital, as its basis. It provides an alternative view to traditional, “push” based economic theories which have categorised refugees and migrants as economic burdens that must be supported by the host country for extended periods of time, to the detriment of the local population. The “pull” model is premised on the finding that migration is a temporal rather than geographic or ethnic issue and that there is additional value to be extracted over the lifespan of a migrant business if the social integration can be expedited through the facilitation of migration capital in addition to individual social, knowledge and economic capital. It considers the benefit that can be realised by the host country, where the process driver remains the migrant entrepreneur, eager to become established in a new country and achieve their long term vision.

The investigation that forms the substance of this thesis has been conducted on historical lines. An intensive study of the Currency and Banking developments in the old Cape Colony between the years 1782 and about 1825, reveals the typical currency development from a money economy to a credit economy. Prior to the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were no commercial banks with the result that there was no credit structure built up on a metallic reserve whereby the amount available for trade could have been multiplied several times. This study of the origin and development of the inconvertible paper rixdollar will enable us to form a correct judgement of the various methods adopted to supply the public exigencies, and the effects of such tampering, in destroying the credit as well as the value of the currency. It will be seen that inconvertible notes can be issued without any limit and when the issuers have a free hand, their value depends solely on the moderation of the issue. The inflation of an inconvertible paper currency may be either automatic or deliberate. The authorities may issue increased currency to meet what they believe to be trade demands, but, in fact, they may issue more than enough and the result will be unconscious inflation. The authorities will argue that more currency is needed because prices are rising, while their opponents will contend that prices are rising because too much currency is being issued. Further, this investigation will reveal the dangers of Government Banking and Government interference in the sphere of currency; the ease with which paper is issued and the difficulty of stopping the issue of notes. Inconvertible notes may be limited to an amount which can circulate without any depreciation, but in that case there can be no more of them than there would have been if they had been convertible, and no object is served by their being inconvertible. Generally, it may be said that the immediate cause of resort to inconvertible paper has almost always been the pressure of public finance. Funds must be raised in some way, and an additional issue of inconvertible notes affords the easiest, though not the best, method of raising them. Such issues lead eventually to uncertainty, discredit and depreciation, which harm the nation's credit and disorganise trade.

Using in-depth interviews and analysis of empirical research, texts and documents, this study attempts to provide a critical analysis of Kenya's trade, infrastructure, and security in the context of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). This is important since it would give interested parties a glance at how prepared Kenya is for the AfCFTA as well as offer a comparison with its continental counterparts in these areas of integration. It was revealed that that Kenya's trade is relatively integrated with the rest of Africa but is still quite some distance behind the most integrated countries. Given that the AfCFTA will lead to increasing intraAfrican trade, the study revealed that Kenya's export basket is relatively diverse suggesting that Kenyan industries could benefit from larger markets. Furthermore, despite being one of the leaders in intra-African trade, Kenya's current level of intra-African trade is still relatively low. This is due to procedural problems, customs and administrative procedures and the over reliance of imports from outside the continent. Strong political will and the application of reforms in the region has allowed Kenya to perform better than most sub-Saharan and lower middle-income countries in terms of infrastructure and how integrated that infrastructure is with the rest of the continent. However, several infrastructural challenges threaten Kenya's successful implementation of the AfCFTA. These challenges include the high cost of implementing infrastructural projects in Kenya, project delays, the politicization of infrastructure development and poor execution and management of road investments. Lastly, the study revealed that Kenya has historically been one of the more insecure and politically unstable countries in the region but there have been some improvements over the last five years. Several security and political obstacles threaten the successful implementation of the AfCFTA in Kenya and East Africa. These obstacles, which include terrorism, ethnic tensions, porous borders, and inefficient security cooperation, stand to negatively impact regional integration in the context of the AfCFTA by destabilizing trade and movement of persons across the region.