The development of an ever-growing number of private health and welfare agencies is one of the distinctive characteristics of urban communities. The need for coordination and guidance in orderly development was met in the past by Charity Organization Societies, in more recent decades, by Community Chest and Council organizations. Community Chest and Community Council--the "Chest as a fund-raising coordinator, and the "Council" as a policy coordinator—appear to be particularly North American institutions, especially in the larger cities of the Eastern seaboard, because of the greater dependence on private philanthrophy and late development of social welfare legislation. With the strengthening of their planning and standard-setting functions and closer integration between "chest" and "council" functions, these organizations, today, are engaged in mobilizing the communities for improved Social Welfare. Chest and Council offices are now widely regarded as an essential part of the social work structure in nearly all major urban centres on the North American Continent. They remain important in spite of increased social legislation, because new agencies continue to be established, because volunteer and experimental work is valuable, and because community education and welfare research functions have come to the fore in modern community development programs. The present study has endeavoured to sift out the essential principles demonstrated by Community Chest and Council history; then to focus specially on the administrative requirements of the modern Chest and Council organization, drawing on some thirty years of Vancouver experience for this purpose. This latter task is followed out in two parts—(a) existing Organization and Administration of the Chest and Council, and (b) the development of its main Sections. In the light of this, the question is examined how far and in what way a Chest and Council as a coordinating welfare organization might be applied to the Capital City of Pakistan (Karachi). The conclusion is that the principles of Community Chest and Council are distinctly adaptable to the city of Karachi and perhaps to other selected metropolitan areas of this country. The present isolated efforts of social welfare agencies can hardly ensure balanced development of health, welfare and recreational services in a fast developing community like Karachi. This is also the best avenue for leadership and an integrated approach toward common problems, through budgeting and social planning. Modifications which may be of special concern in Pakistan are indicated. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

The credit grantor needs to make credit appraisals in deciding whether or not to extend credit to a corporation enterprise. The accounting statements (cash flow statement, funds flow statement, income statement and balance sheet) are the usual sources of such information. However, these statements contain different types of information and are capable of various interpretations. This study seeks to establish what types of information are or ought to be contained in these statements which would be of use to credit grantors, to evaluate the relevance and usefulness of such information for making credit decisions, and to suggest such modifications of present statements as appear desirable. The short-term creditor is primarily concerned with short-term solvency. The cash flow statement and the funds flow statement are two sources of information which are relevant. The long-term creditor's principal concern is long-term solvency. Future income flow is particularly indicative of long-term solvency. Present income is an index of the probable future income. The balance sheet is a statement listing the resources available which give rise to future income. Thus, the long-term creditor's primary interest is in the income statement and the balance sheet. His interest in short-term solvency and in the income statement is secondary and only to the extent that long-term solvency becomes irrelevant if an enterprise becomes insolvent in the interim period before payment, of his debt. Each of the terms "cash flow", "funds flow", "income" and "balance sheet" have several interpretations. The relevant accounting statements can each be prepared in various ways according to the interpretation of the respective terms. The information in the statement will vary accordingly. A proposal is made in this study to adopt "cash flow as historical changes in the cash account", "funds flow as the inflow and outflow of total resources or purchasing power", "income as measured according to the current operating concept of income", and "balance sheet as a listing of total resources available". An attempt is made to introduce into the respective statements such modifications as appear particularly relevant to the creditor for decision making. A model for each type of statement, based on the proposed interpretation and incorporating the suggested modifications, is illustrated in the study. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

This thesis investigates the impact of financial liberalisation policies on finance-growth relationship and financial crises. Analysis of recent trends and economic performance of financially developed and stable economies raises at least two very important questions that seem to have strong analytical connections. The first question is associated with the link between financial development and economic growth and the second question focuses the possible association between the policies of financial liberalisation and financial vulnerability. In this thesis we aim to shed light on some of the aspects that have gained so much attention from academics and policy makers during the last two decades. First we address whether excessive liberalisation has caused financial development to lose its effectiveness in generating economic growth. We employ a dynamic panel data analysis for 88 countries over the period of 1973 to 2005. Our index for the financial sector liberalisation covers seven aspects: credit controls and reserve requirements, interest rate controls, entry barriers, state ownership, policies on securities markets, banking regulations and restrictions on capital market. We use a comprehensive financial development indicator constructed through principal component analysis of five different indicators: bank private credit to GDP ratio, liquid liability to GDP ratio, deposit money bank assets to total bank assets ratio, deposit money bank assets to GDP ratio, and bank credit to bank deposit ratio. The results indicate that the positive effect of financial development on long-run growth continues to decline as the financial sector becomes more liberalised. Our results are robust to changes in the financial development indicators and the dis-aggregation of the financial liberalisation index. Second, we examine the possibility for an optimal sequence of financial sector reforms that may reduce an economy’s vulnerability to financial crises. We construct a distance measure from the countries that followed a more gradual approach and liberalised their capital account at a later stage. Our analysis shows that the experience of the countries that delayed or followed a very gradual approach for the liberalisation of their capital accounts have high level of implications to those countries that allowed for shock approach or liberalised their capital account before bringing reforms in other sectors.

This research develops a microeconomic theory of the financial firm that is empirically implementable. Financial firms such as banks and savings and loan associations produce intermediation services between borrowers and lenders. User costs per unit of service can be derived for all goods. For financial services, these include the effects of reserve requirements, capital gains or losses, deposit insurance, interest rates, and service charges. Items generating more expenditure than revenue for the firm have positive user costs, and are inputs. Those with negative user costs are outputs. Comparative statics on profits, supplies of output and demands for input are derived for interest rates and monetary regulations. Data comprise pooled time series and cross section data for eighteen banks in New York and New Jersey for the years 1973-1978. User cost and quantity data are constructed for loans, demand deposits, time deposits, cash, labour and materials. The first two are outputs and the last four inputs. A specification is derived for the variable profit function, and the testing of regularity conditions such as monotonicity and convexity described. A test for the existence of a money supply, as a subset of financial goods is developed. The test imposes no prior restriction on the form of the money supply. The empirical results indicate that convexity and monotonicity obtain, at the geometric mean of the sample. Elasticities of supply for outputs are positive, but less than unity. Elasticities of demand are negative. Bank response to any monetary policy action can be calculated, and some experiments are reported on. An alternate model is derived to permit imperfect competition in the financial firm market for outputs and inputs. The model is shown to yield testable predictions, and price taking behavior for these banks is ruled out. The results indicate that it is possible to develop and implement a model of financial firm behavior. Such a model is required to ensure accuracy in the effectiveness of monetary policy. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

M.Comm. (Financial Management) / The basic function of Accounting is to supply the user with useful quantitative financial information on the economic and social activities of the enterprise, as to help them achieve their goals in decision making. Employee activity is included in the above-mentioned activities. The conventional accounting approach to an asset has until now prevented accounting for the Labour Force as an asset in financial statements. This has the effect that the activity of the enterprises' most important asset is uncontrolled and unaccounted for. The purpose of this paper is to prove the importance of controlling and uniform accounting of the Labour Force, with specific reference to management controls, labour relations and productivity. Management control methods and audit procedures were investigated to grant credibility to the employee report. In chapter 2 the qualitative characteristics and requirements of information (financial statements) are investigated and in chapter 3 it is concluded that the Labour Force is indeed an asset. There is a definite need for information on the Labour Force. Regulation by means of to the manpower function is investigated and a possible audit program is proposed. In examining the current practice of disclosure it was found that no guideline exists and therefor no uniformity iri disclosure. This influences the usefulness of information as disclosed. Information is of no use if it is not comparable. To grant creditworthiness to the information an audit program and an audit report are proposed. Based on the usefulness of financial statements, a guideline on the disclosure of information on the Labour Force, should be established. No asset may remain unaccounted for and in our current political situation, education can benefit if information is disclosed regarding its employees. However the proposed guideline should concentrate on uniformity in disclosure. To enhance the credibility of such an employee report the enterprise may consider to subjecting it to auditing.

The aim of this diploma thesis is an analysis of a level of financial literacy of citizens of Czech Republic. The opening part concentrates on the definition of basic concepts and on the characteristic of financial literacy. The second chapter deals with activities and programs for support of financial literacy on a multinational and European level and describes activities, which support financial literacy in the Czech Republic. The final chapter of this theoretical part contains a summary of the most important concepts of financial literacy in the context of normal civic life. The findings and outcomes of the fourth chapter are based on the processing results of the survey aimed to examine the financial literacy of the sample of respondents. The last part of this thesis is devoted to demonstration of possible activities to increase financial literacy.

Financial planning has often been thought of as the most useful financial resource for the average American family. Prior to the Great Recession of 2008, research on factors that influence financial literacy has been scarce in academic journals. Very few resources are available to help guide household finance. The purpose of this dissertation was to determine factors that influenced financial literacy in U.S. households. Using existing financial literacy quiz questions, a personal financial literacy quiz was given to a sample of Debtors and Non-debtors in the Middle District of North Carolina. An average quiz score was developed for each participant, and was used as the dependent variable for the study. Various survey questions were used to develop 149 independent variables broken up into demographic factors, psychological factors, and financial behaviors for the same participant. Regression analyses were used to determine which of the 149 independent variables were significantly related to financial literacy. Factor analysis was also used to determined factors of financial literacy. The study found 125 significant factors of financial literacy in 16 different categories including: demographic factors, psychological factors, financial actions, financial attitudes, planning actions, mortgage decisions, budgeting habits, goal planning, retirement planning, credit management, income planning, insurance planning, mortgage debt ratios, savings planning, investment planning, and financial self-control. Future studies can expand the sample size to include all 50 states, and to help determine which factors of financial literacy should be used in building a personal financial planning model that all professionals and families can use to maximize personal financial success.

The statistical distribution of financial returns plays a key role in evaluating Value-at-Risk using parametric methods. Traditionally, when evaluating parametric Value-at-Risk, the statistical distribution of the financial returns is assumed to be normally distributed. However, though simple to implement, the Normal distribution underestimates the kurtosis and skewness of the observed financial returns. This dissertation focuses on the evaluation of the South African equity markets in a Value-at-Risk framework. Value-at- Risk is estimated on five equity stocks listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, including the FTSE/JSE TOP40 index and the S&P 500 index. The statistical distribution of the financial returns is modelled using the Normal Inverse Gaussian and is compared to the financial returns modelled using the Normal, Skew t-distribution and Student t-distribution. We then estimate Value-at-Risk under the assumption that financial returns follow the Normal Inverse Gaussian, Normal, Skew t-distribution, Student t-distribution and Extreme Value Theory and backtesting was performed under each distribution assumption. The results of these distributions are compared and discussed. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / Mathematics and Applied Mathematics / MSc / Unrestricted

Research in the field of impression management has presented evidence that suggests as a company's performance declines, the readability of its financial reports also declines in order to confound the user. In an attempt to determine whether similar impression management strategies are implemented amongst South African listed public companies, a mixed-effects linear regression model was applied to analyse data over the period 2016- 2018. Performance was regressed to the report readability measures over time, where readability was divided into the aspects of length (through the word count) and complexity (as quantified by the Gunning Fog Index). The findings indicate that as the financial performance of a South African company declines, the length of all its reports increases: including the annual financial statements, Integrated Report and the annual results market announcement. However, there is limited evidence of a relationship between complexity and performance. Therefore, when South African companies perform poorly, despite producing lengthier reports, the complexity therein is not impacted. These results thus caution users when faced with reports that are unusually lengthy in nature, because this trait could signal poor performance. Users are advised accordingly to critically analyse excessively lengthy reports in order to separate decision-useful information from the impression management related content elements. Lastly, this research contributes to the foundation of impression management research in the context of the South African capital market and puts forward several suggestions for important future research.

The study examined the relationship between financial intermediation and poverty in selected developing countries. In particular the study sought to examine the deterministic relationship, cointegration and the causality between financial intermediation and poverty. Panel data spanning the period 2004-2016 for 35 developing countries was employed. Substantial empirical research proposed that financial development expands economic prospects and reduces poverty and inequality. Hitherto, there is a dearth of empirical studies on the potential effects of formal financial dimensions of financial access, financial efficiency and financial stability in reducing poverty. There is also a lack of empirical work on the joint effect of the other financial dimensions in a financial intermediation setting in poverty reduction. The present study contributed to literature by including these financial dimensions in examining cointegration and causality between financial dimensions and poverty. The study employed a number of econometric methodologies to address the objectives of the research such as the GMM, panel ARDL and panel ECM. The GMM was employed to examine the determinants of poverty that were selected for this study. To examine the long run, short run and the causal relationship, the panel ARDL and the error correction model were used. In addition the study deployed PCA to develop the composite index for institutional quality. Panel heterogenous estimation methods such as the pooled mean group to infer the cointegration and causal effect between the financial dimensions and poverty were employed. The Hausman test was used to determine the most appropriate estimator and the PMG estimator was selected as the most appropriate since the p-value of the Hausman test was insignificant. The results from panel ARDL, cointegration test showed the existence of a long run relationship between financial intermediation, financial access, financial efficiency, financial access and poverty. Furthermore, the study noted that the relationship between financial intermediation and poverty differ depending on how poverty is measured. Therefore, the distortions in understanding and definition of poverty may consequently lead to distorted policies that yield little or no results for the effectiveness of the financial sector in poverty reduction.The study found strong causality in the long run for all the poverty proxies and the selected financial variables. Additionally the results from the panel causality tests indicate the bidirectional causality of the variables in the long run. We fail to observe the causality among most iii of the variables in the short run. There is strong joint causality among the variables in the panel as the results of the error correction term is negative and significant indicating that there is dynamic stability between the financial variables and poverty. The study further included the domestic public debt and remittances as determinants of poverty in a financial intermediation setting. Since domestic public debt can crowd out private credit, this study included domestic public debt for the panel of the developing countries and the study found that domestic public debt has a poverty reducing effect. Additionally the study found that remittances reduce the share of population living in poverty whilst increasing inequality as indicated in the findings of the study. / Finance, Risk Management and Banking