Social impact bonds (SIBs) have been welcomed enthusiastically as a new funding tool for social innovation, yet also condemned as an instrument that neglects beneficiaries' and taxpayers' interests, opening profit opportunities in the field of social politics for smart private investors. We will shed a more analytical light on SIBs, assuming that, like any contract, SIBs try to align interests between partners with partly converging, partly diverging goals. Thus, it remains mainly a matter of negation, and non-profit social service providers as well as public agencies should avoid particular perils and pitfalls.

Thesis (M.Com. (Development Theory and Policy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2014. / After 20 years in existence democratic South Africa is at the crossroads while people lives have changed significantly after 1994, the country has faced increasing levels of unemployment and inequality. Drawing from the Keynesian theory of employment and recent financialization literature, this paper looks at the trends in financial income as a share of profits in the mining sector and how this has affected real investment in the sector and linking with the theory we look at how his behaviour has contributed to the employment levels in the sector. This retrospective look at the mining sector is done in order to pick trends that might give us better insight for policy interventions in the sector in order to create employment opportunities for the population going forward

This thesis examines the effect of weather events, monetary policy, and financialization on changes in global inventory, futures prices, spot prices, futures returns, and producers' equity returns of exchange-traded commodities. First, I investigate the relationship between temperature and precipitation anomalies on aluminium futures returns. Prior research only examines the effects of weather anomalies on soft commodities, although flooding, drought and temperature are also identified as disrupters to mining operations in both regulatory filings and media reports. However, I find no evidence of weather effects on aluminium futures returns. Instead, the evidence suggests that inventories provide enough buffer for weather events and that trading around such events is unlikely to yield abnormal returns. Second, I investigate the relationships between metal futures returns and global monetary policy and demonstrate that a multiplier ratio created to proxy for market liquidity and the effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy is positively related to the price of industrial metals. Contrary to prior research, there is little evidence of a relationship between real interest rates and industrial metals futures returns. These findings will enhance the ability of policymakers and other agents to determine whether the intended effects of quantitative easing are being transmitted to the markets. Third, I investigate the role of financialization in shaping the relationship between non-commercial speculation (hereinafter, speculation), trader concentration, and commodity futures returns. While prior studies variously find evidence of stabilising, reinforcing and destabilising effects of speculation upon returns, I show that speculation does not Granger-cause futures returns but that there is evidence of reverse causality from futures returns to speculation. Additionally, commodity futures returns respond to the publication of open interest information. Overall, financialization reduces the power of individual traders to set futures prices in a concentrated commodity market. These findings support a policy approach aimed at enhancing transparency rather than adding regulatory controls.

The thesis describes and reflects on a middle-manager’s experience of a market-led economic based restructuring project in a New Zealand public sector organisation. The thesis takes the form of an autoethnography, a reflexive account of the writer’s personal experience while acting in a professional capacity. The use of autoethnography as a research social science methodology has been subject to criticisms relating validity and relevance. However, the value of this methodology is the potential to ‘situate’ the reader inside the events, providing a rich understanding of the lived experience of the emergence of a restructured organisation. The thesis shows how a hierarchical organisation, celebrating the primacy of management and the financialization of all transactions, required middle-managers to put aside their professional / vocational commitments to work and enter into and endorse fealty / loyalty relationships with senior executives. It shows how both the language and silences of organisational change served to rationalise a new ‘ordering’ of the ‘moral mazes’ of the organisation that not only demanded commitment be demonstrated through loyalty, but also positioned middle-managers, who were rendered as insecure as their colleagues / team members, as the mediators / controllers of the restructure project. The thesis argues that the negative affect exhibited by team members involved in the restructuring project was a direct consequence of the intervention methodology and communication style deployed by senior management.

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / Alguns autores apontam o sumiÃo do termo âimperialismoâ dos debates polÃticos contemporÃneos. Este conceito retorna à cena principalmente com a entrada americana na Guerra do Iraque e a luta proclamada por Bush contra o terrorismo. No entanto seu significado nÃo mais guardaria relaÃÃo com as bases econÃmicas da estrutura social, sendo agora utilizado na sua concepÃÃo do sÃculo XIX, onde era visto como uma grande missÃo civilizadora. Prova disso à a publicaÃÃo da obra ImpÃrio, de Negri e Hardt, onde seus autores apontam que o imperialismo acabara e que o mundo hoje seria dominado por uma nova forma denominada ImpÃrio. O que percebemos à que as diversas tentativas de extinguir o conceito de imperialismo nÃo se mostraram fecundas para a interpretaÃÃo da realidade dinÃmica do capitalismo atual. Para nÃs o imperialismo à algo imanente ao capitalismo e a compreensÃo da moderna lÃgica de desenvolvimento do capital perpassa pelo entendimento dos diversos mecanismos imperialistas utilizados pelos paÃses centrais de se apropriar da riqueza dos paÃses perifÃricos garantindo assim a manutenÃÃo tanto de sua posiÃÃo de hegemon quanto o prÃprio processo de reproduÃÃo da ordem sÃcio- metabÃlica do capital. Nossa hipÃtese à que a manutenÃÃo hodierna do sistema monetÃrio internacional, sob a forma do padrÃo dÃlar flexÃvel, cria um ambiente extremamente propÃcio para a reproduÃÃo do capital por parte da naÃÃo hegemÃnica, no caso os Estados Unidos, atravÃs da apropriaÃÃo das riquezas dos paÃses perifÃricos, tornando -se esse o cerne da natureza imperialista contemporÃnea / Some authors note the disappearance of the term "imperialism" of contemporary political debates. This concept returns to the scene especially with the American entry into the Iraq war and Bush proclaimed fight against terrorism. However its meaning no longer holds any relationship to the economic basis of social structure, now being used in their conception of the nineteenth century, where it was seen as a great civilizing mission. What we perceive is that the various attempts to extinguish the concept of i mperialism were not fruitful for the interpretation of the dynamic reality of contemporary capitalism. Our hypothesis is that the maintenance of the international monetary system today, in the form of the floating dollar standard, creates an environment hi ghly conducive to the reproduction of capital by the hegemonic nation, where the United States, through the appropriation of the wealth of the peripheral countries , becoming the core of the contemporary imperialist nature.

<P> This dissertation argues that the imagination takes on a new importance in the current moment of "financialization": the expansion of financial power both broadly around the world and deeply into everyday life. I suggest that a dialectic theory of imagination and value is necessary to understand this shift. Following an introduction laying out this problematic, chapter two looks at the career of the Western notions of the imagination up to and including the 191h century, positing that it has been an important aspect of the rise of modernity, capitalism and colonialism, but one whose political salience diminished with the rise of discourses of value. In chapter three I turn to theories of imagination in the twentieth century. But I suggest that none of these theories sufficiently accounts for the economic. In order to do so, I turn in chapter four to the notion of value, arguing that we are better equipped to understand economic value under capitalism when we see its relationship to other social values (ethical, aesthetic, political, etc.). To do so, I revisit Marx's "Labour Theory of Value" and, after narrating the rise and fall of this influential idea, I discuss the work of current social theorists seeking to revivify this concept for new times. In the fifth chapter I delineate how capitalism as a system subordinates social values to economic value and how finance is both the highest articulation and a key moment of this process. I conclude by mapping this theoretical approach through a reading of children's play with Pokemon cards, arguing that financialization demands we revisit questions of structure and agency in cultural studies. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Understanding the financialization of rental housing across space becomes increasingly important as residential listed real estate operating companies (REOCs) like Heimstaden expand their investments beyond their national borders. Especially as this comes at a time when there is a growing shortage of affordable housing in several European cities. Despite Heimstaden's growing portfolio in several European countries and its emphasis on a socially sustainable investment strategy, there has been insufficient research on its investment trajectories in practice. This study, therefore, examines Heimstaden's investment narratives and the impact of its practices on tenants in Berlin against the backdrop of a tense socio-political climate, i.e., a shortage of affordable housing, a strong tenant base, and regulatory pressure on rents. Multiple methods of data collection, including document analysis, interviews, and a tenant survey sent to the critical mass of Heimstaden's tenants, enabled the study to explore tenants' experiences with Heimstaden in Berlin, as well as how the local political context influenced Heimstaden's investment trajectories. The results of the study show how Heimstaden found a gap in Berlin’s rental market by securing financial gains through extensive marketing, an investment approach based on more affordable rent setting, and increasingly bowing to local socio-political pressure. Although, Heimstaden does not fully live up to its claims, a more tenant-centred approach helps Heimstaden to maintain positive legitimacy and reputation with stakeholders and shareholders to avoid becoming a target of criticism. In other words, the study suggests that after intense criticism of the aggressive practices of previous financial landlords, Heimstaden is adapting to a higher level of social sustainability in their investment narratives and practices to ensure continued and long-term accumulation of financial assets in the Berlin rental market.

A fase monopolista de desenvolvimento do capital, historicamente, foi permeada por uma série de alterações na organização da produção, com extensões em diversos aspectos da vida em sociedade. As mudanças na inter-relação entre a estrutura produtiva e o setor financeiro caracterizaram esse processo, que envolveu também uma intensificação do grau de concentração e centralização do capital. Esta proposta objetiva avaliar, sob prisma diferenciado, o circuito secundário de movimentação de capital: o setor imobiliário e nele os shopping centers, considerados uma demonstração típica das forças capitalistas atuais. Pretendo identificar como a circulação do capital se movimenta internamente, no shopping , através de seus agentes o empreendedor, a administradora, o lojista e o cliente, e externamente na captação de recursos através das fusões, aquisições e abertura de capital, contribuindo com o crescimento dessa nova modalidade de acumulação e financeirização. / The monopolist phase of the capital development was, historically, permeated by a number of changes in the organization of the production, with extensions in various aspects in the life in society. The changes in the interrelation between the production structure and the financial sector characterized this process, which envolved an intensification of the concentration degree and centralization of the capital too. This proposal aims to evaluate, under a differentiated prism, the secondary circuit of movement of capital: the real estate - the shopping malls, considered a typical demonstration of the current capitalist forces. I intend to identify how \"the movement of capital\" moves internally in the malls, through its \"agents\" - the entrepreneur, the administrator, the shopkeeper and the client, and externally, in the fund raising through mergers, acquisitions and IPO, contributing in this new mode of accumulation and financialization.