This study has investigated mandatory disclosure requirements of financial instruments. A first-time adoption compliance review has been undertaken for the FTSE 100 non-financial IFRS 7 compliant firms. In contrast to prior studies, the results reveal that disclosure levels were high, and in some cases firms produce more disclosure than mandatorily required. As recent reviews of disclosure have shown, extant research lacks a coherent definition of quality that links to the original motivations for financial reporting. An argument has been built for adopting compliance levels as an appropriate proxy for the quality of disclosure. This study tests this definition via key stakeholders’ views both ex-ante and ex-post. A combination of content analysis of comment letters, survey data and semi-structured interviews was adopted. Though there is some evidence to the contrary, by and large, it seems that this definition of quality carries a level of integrity. Following this, a determinants study was undertaken investigating what factors drove the quality and quantity of these disclosures. It was found that higher levels of visibility (news stories versus analysts following), a share issue during the year and a higher volume of derivative assets held were statistically significant to quality. Those determinants significant to quantity were lower levels of managerial ownership and higher levels of news stories versus analyst following. However, of greater interest was the finding that the determinants of the quantity of disclosures were different to quality – and often in opposition. Thus, for the first time in a mandatory reporting environment, the findings cast doubt over the appropriateness of researchers adopting quantity as a proxy for quality. Finally, prior literature has shown that accounting standards requirements can be biased towards certain user groups as a result of the lobbying process. If this was the case for IFRS 7 then the compliance results presented could be unfairly skewed as proposals might be adopted to benefit those stronger lobbyists. It is pleasing to note that this study found that the IASB appears to have approached all groups’ responses fairly and appropriately. However, it should be noted that the evidence suggests that if the geographical origin of a response was from either the UK or from outside of the remaining countries of Europe and the US there was a significantly lower chance of the proposed amendment(s) being accepted. This study contributes to the literature by presenting results from a first full review of financial instruments reporting under IFRS 7, and by providing evidence that full, partial, non- and over-compliance are most likely explained by legitimacy theory, impression management and proprietary costs theory. In addition, this is the first study to review key stakeholders’ attitudes towards the financial instruments reporting requirements, thus helping to justify using the level of compliance as an appropriate measure of quality, whilst providing a cautionary conclusion about the possible inappropriateness of adopting quantity as a proxy.

In today's knowledge intensive society humans and human capital are at the centre of economic progress. While companies focused on achieving succes in the past by concentrating on technological advances and ensuring that their tangible assets are used to the most productive means, in the last few years there has been an understanding that the human capital of an organisation contributes significantly to the economic success of a firm.

This is a normative research on how best to structure financial regulatory agencies and principles consistently with the core objectives of financial regulation in such a manner that can yield an effective regulatory framework for Nigeria. It moves forward the debate on what an effective financial regulatory ought to be relative to a country's national context, its developmental stage and how international financial regulatory best practice principles can be 'woven' into the design of an enduring regulatory architecture in a developing economy such as Nigeria. The thesis contributes to three areas namely: the literature on comparative financial regulation, financial legal transplantation, and financial regulatory reform. On comparative financial regulation, it contributes a developing world perspective on the legal and institutional challenges of financial regulation and how to deal with these challenges. On financial regulatory transplantation, it contributes to the debate on how best to conceptualise a financial regulatory architecture that mirror contemporary international best practices and that fits into the Nigerian context. In relation to financial regulatory reform, the thesis makes two major sub-contributions. First, it links financial regulation in Nigeria with robust and multi-layered regulatory accountability mechanisms including judicial and democratic accountability. Second, it generates principles that can be transformed into laws and policies to achieve the following: (a) the imposition of mandatory inter-agency co-ordination among financial regulators; (b) imposition of a statutory duty on financial regulators to prevent regulatory failure; (c) the imposition of liability for a supervisory failure induced collapse of a financial institution and (or) a financial crisis; (d) the use of irreversible convertible debentures as a corporate governance disciplinary mechanism to deter imprudent business model and to serve as a forward looking strategy to address the 'historical inevitability of financial crises' in the unlikely event that the financial regulatory system fails.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a topic of rising importance in the current human rights discussion. As multinational supply chains have a growing impact on people’ lives, both in more developed and developing countries the question of how to regulate the behaviour of the companies that engage in these supply chains becomes increasingly important. States have tried to do this through both national and international law, by introducing hard law regulations as well as voluntary frameworks, so called soft law initiatives. The general legal framework of international law will first be introduced and subsequently focus will lie on the United Nations Principles on Business and Human Rights (The UN Guiding Principles) concerning the social responsibility of companies. In this thesis, the second of these sections is explored through an investigation into what responsibilities financial institutions, institutions that provides financial services for its clients or members, can be considered to have according to the legal framework associated with the corporate responsibility of human rights. The position of financial institutions is unique in a supply chain due to their distance to the production and hence to the country wherein the most fundamental human rights risks are present. Meanwhile, these financial institutions are also key to the trade operating throughout the supply chain. The thesis will identify the human rights issues along a supply chain and investigate the subsequent responsibilities that are tied to the financial institutions. The primary objective of the thesis is to clarify how to apply the international framework to the financial institutions and provide an answer to the question of what the human rights responsibilities of financial institutions are along a supply chain and to answer the question: what are the human rights responsibilities of financial institutions along a supply chain?

Conventional financial theory has played an important – and yet largely unexamined – role in shaping how we regulate modern financial markets. This thesis explores the influence of conventional financial theory on the regulation of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives markets in the U.S. and U.K. prior to the global financial crisis. More specifically, it explores how conventional financial theory failed to adequately account for both the complexity of OTC derivatives markets and the nature and pace of financial innovation and, ultimately, how these blind spots became reflected in a ‘non-interventionist’ approach toward their regulation now widely viewed as suboptimal. This thesis yields three important contributions to the scholarly and public policy debates surrounding the regulation of modern financial markets. First, it articulates a more robust theoretical framework for understanding complexity, financial innovation, and the relationship between these powerful market dynamics. This, in turn, facilitates an examination of the implications of complexity and financial innovation in terms of the ongoing debates respecting the optimal source, form and scope of financial regulation. It also facilitates an examination of both the shortcomings of the pre-crisis regulatory regimes governing OTC derivatives markets and, looking forward, the prospective strengths and weaknesses of embryonic post-crisis reforms. Finally, and more broadly, this thesis enhances our understanding of the relationship between the important insights of financial theory and how we conceptualize and pursue the objectives of financial regulation.

In this paper we stress test the banking sectors of the PIIGS countries. We focus in particular on modeling the credit risk and estimating the impact of changes in macroeconomic variables on the level of capital adequacy. We develop two scenarios - a baseline stress testing scenario and an adverse scenario. The results indicate that under both scenarios, the analyzed banking systems have some capital adequacy issues. We find that the Portuguese banking sector is facing biggest capitalization problems. Number of undercapitalized banks under the adverse scenario is bigger than in baseline scenario for all the countries. Another finding which is common for all the countries is that large-sized privately owned banks are better capitalized than small and medium-sized ones. Last finding concerns ownership structure where we have found that all the state-owned banks are undercapitalized in both scenarios. JEL Classification F12, F21, C53, E37, G21, G28 Keywords bank, credit risk, macro stress testing, PIIGS Author's e-mail igor.vukic@gmail.com Supervisor's e-mail adibabin@gmail.com

The initial direction of this research was in the application of Quality tools and techniques, within the framework of the EFQM Model for Business Excellence. Three quality improvement projects managed by the author (Cost of Quality, BPR and Benchmarking) sought to identify the key elements of a process improvement methodology. However, the completion of the three case studies led the author to review the whole approach of the research. The review led to the need to develop an understanding of the culture and the environment of an organisation as a precursor to implementing quality improvement. The ability of an organisation to manage the process of continuous improvement or TQM implementation was fundamentally dependent on the culture of an organisation. Organisational culture is the bedrock upon which organisational change is based and an understanding of the culture could help the practitioner focus on key change issues at the outset. The main work in the research then set about attempting to develop and test a model of organisational culture and climate which would help practitioners develop a fuller understanding of organisational culture and internal environment before interventions were carried out. A process for developing an understanding of organisational culture and climate was derived, using information obtained from the culture, quality and climate literature and the review of the case studies. This process included the use of various tools and techniques such as multi-item questionnaire and focus groups. The process used Focus Groups to identify key issues within Lloyds TSB and to help develop a multi-item questionnaire, termed PCOC. The PCOC questionnaire was then tested in four different Areas of Lloyds TSB and the results were analysed and compared to identify similarities and differences across Business Areas. The implications for the implementation of quality improvement were identified and recommendations for managing change were made.

Financial Transmission Rights (FTRs) have been a feature of competitive electricity markets for nearly 20 years. FTRs are financial derivatives sold in periodic auctions. Revenues from the sale of these derivatives are passed through to electricity ratepayers to compensate them for transmission congestion payments they make in the spot energy market. FTR purchasers are effectively swapping their auction payment for an uncertain revenue stream over the life of the FTR. In recent years, industry market monitors have become concerned with the auctions’ performance in adequately compensating ratepayers – FTRs sell, on average, for a price less than the revenue they generate for the purchaser. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of FTR market functioning by studying the Auction Revenue Rights (ARR) management process, which is the predominate mechanism used in U.S. electricity markets to distribute FTR auction revenue to electricity ratepayers. This dissertation is organized into three essays, detailed below. The first essay demonstrates how the ARR process influences fundamental supply conditions in the FTR auction market and show how divergent auction equilibria emerge under different ARR decision-making regimes. Using market data from the PJM Interconnection, this essay finds empirical evidence that variation in ARR management strategies helps explain differences between an FTR’s auction price and its realized ex post value. The second essay studies the interaction of affiliated subsidiaries in auctions for FTRs. The essay documents a setting where a regulated utility routinely sells FTRs (through the ARR process) to an affiliated generation company in an auction where a portion of the revenue is passed through to the regulated utility’s retail customers. It appears that the affiliated generator may be placing strategic bids in the auction to minimize the price they pay for the derivatives, which would also minimize the revenue passed through to the regulated utility’s retail customers. The third essay studies the relationship between the long-term FTR auction market and the annual auction market in terms of ARR prices. Long-term auction clearing prices systematically overvalue FTRs that are along the paths of an ARR, thus providing electricity ratepayers with a biased signal of the potential value of their ARR allocations. Collectively, these three essays demonstrate the role of the ARR process in determining equilibrium FTR auction prices. Not only do ARR management decisions directly affect equilibrium prices, but ARRs constitute the mechanism by which auction revenues are passed through to ratepayers. Thus, any analysis of FTR auction revenue deficiency must include a thorough understanding and empirical incorporation of the ARR process into the analysis. <br><br>

This study investigates the main drivers of excess liquidity in the financial sector of Lesotho using Vector Auto Regression (VAR) analysis. The study also undertakes a comparative analysis of Lesotho and CMA economies for economic and financial sector characteristics to benchmark and assist policy recommendation. The results of the study suggest that excess liquidity in Lesotho’s financial sector is driven by undeveloped financial sector as reflected by significant private sector credit to GDP ratio in the results, government expenditure and central bank activities in the open market operations, together with past levels of excess liquidity in the model. Compared to CMA, financial intermediary in Lesotho is relatively undeveloped with government dominating economic activity. The banking sector is observed to be non-competitive for deposits as hinted by the wide intermediation margin compared to other CMA countries.

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