Magister Legum - LLM / The objective of this research was to examine how SADC states can attain goal 8 of the Millennium Development Goals set up by the international community through the United Nations in the year 2000, using trade under the mechanism envisaged by the World Trade Organization by the target date of 2015. / South Africa

Magister Legum - LLM / This thesis has attempted to provide an analysis of two legal instruments; the Cotonou Agreement and the AGOA. Specific attention was directed to these instruments impact on trade between the European Union and the United States, respectively, and beneficiary African countries. / South Africa

This study presents a new attempt to gain a better understanding of those forces that lead to the movement of funds from one country to another. Attention is restricted to the international market for long-term debt capital. The empirical analysis focuses on capital flows between Canada and the United States, particularly on Canadian corporate borrowing in the United States during the period from i960 through May 1973. A model of the international term structure of interest rates is developed. Differences in time preferences between nations, exchange rate expectations and exchange risk, and transaction costs are shown to determine interest rate differentials and to influence international capital flows. The inflow of long-term debt capital into Canada is almost exclusively due to the sale of new bond issues abroad by borrowers other than the federal government. Activities of international investors in secondary markets are of only minor importance. Therefore we have to rely on an indirect test of the basic features of our theory. We concentrate on an analysis of decisions by Canadian corporations to float U.S.-pay bonds. An examination of macro-economic data indicates that Canadians have a markedly higher demand for funds than Americans. An analysis of bond markets in the two countries suggests that Canadian lenders prefer comparatively marketable securities. To further test for such differences in time preferences, it is hypothesized that the availability of a well-functioning private placement market, of long-term forward commitments, and of longer maturities should be factors attracting Canadian corporations to the U.S. bond market. Both discriminant analysis results and interviews with managers, underwriters, and life insurance officers provide strong support for our assertions, except that longer terms to maturity available in the U.S. are of lesser interest to Canadian firms. An analysis of exchange risk suggests that long terms to maturity and evenly distributed sinking fund payments should be preferred. Firms active in export markets should regard foreign borrowing as a means to sell income denominated in a foreign currency forward. Only weak statistical support for the asserted corporate behaviour is found. Interviews revealed that exchange risk influences foreign borrowing, but its management is not well understood. Slightly lower nominal interest costs seem to be all the protection against exchange risk firms require. Factors other than lower borrowing costs have become increasingly important for the choice between Canadian-pay and U.S.-pay bonds. In our model it is assumed that information and transaction costs are higher when two investors from different nations deal with each other than for purely domestic transactions. Causes of such differences and their impact on capital flows are analyzed. Whereas the typical American private placement is small in size and issued by a smaller, less financially secure firm, Canadian U.S.-pay bonds are large in size and sold by larger corporations or those with international connections. Continuing relationships with American lenders have also proven very beneficial. Finally, the individual results are drawn together. It is shown that the hypotheses derived from our model lead to the identification of variables that allow an almost perfect discrimination between Canadian-pay and U.S.-pay bonds issued by Canadian corporations. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

This thesis focuses on three issues pertaining to growth, development, and trade between developed and developing countries. The first essay develops an endogenous growth model that incorporates Engel’s law into the preferences. The model shows that the initial distribution of income is crucial to the outcome. A closed-economy country where most of its population is poor experiences a low rate of innovation. Income transfers from the rich to the poor can increase the effective labour supply, thereby enhancing the rate of innovation. Under free trade, only the rich benefit from trade. The poor are indifferent unless they already can afford to consume the minimum requirement of food before trade or the minimum requirement becomes affordable after trade by cheaper imported food. The initial distribution of income influences the trade patterns. Moreover, income redistribution in a free trade environment also increases the growth rate. The second essay extends the first one by assuming that the marginal product of labour of the food sector is decreasing. It shows that an increase in population may decrease the growth rate if the initial population is large relative to the productivity of the food sector. Moreover, an increase in one country’s population may reduce that country’s production share of the world’s innovation and increase its dependency on imported technology. The last essay analyzes the welfare impact of minimum-export requirements (MERs) imposed on foreign direct investments. This essay shows that MERs can be Pareto improving measures to both the source and the host countries. When offshore plants are used by parent firms to compete with domestic firms in the source country, MERs can improve the host country’s welfare by inducing the total sales in the source country to rise, thereby reducing the distortion generated by imperfect competition. The MERs can simultaneously improve the welfare of the host country by shifting profits of the foreign firms toward the local firms. If the local firms are absent, the host’s welfare may still be improved if sufficient profits from foreign operations are retained in the host country. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

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published_or_final_version / Comparative Asian Studies / Master / Master of Arts

The main task of this thesis is to investigate economic implications of U.S.- China trade. The study period covers from 1972 to 1992. Data are available from International Financial Statistics, Survey of Current Business, Statistical Yearbook of P.R.China. Various hypotheses are employed to explain the basis and gain of trade, the impact of trade on both economies, and the major determinants of bilateral trade flows. This thesis contains five parts: I. Introduction; II. Outlook; III. Theoretical Analysis; IV. Empirical Study; and V. Conclusion. The major findings of this thesis are that both countries have gained advantages from trade and have also faced some unpleasant problems; several widely recognized theories serve as good approaches to understand these issues; the time series distributed lag models are helpful in explaining the determinants of trade flows.

M. Comm. / The aim of this study was to analyse the trade between South Africa and Thailand. The relation between factor endowments and comparative advantage of the Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) theory as well as the alternative theory of the modern international trade theory were used in the analysis. The trade opportunities and the future trade prospectives of both countries were being presented according to the theory on international trade. The relation between factor endowments and comparative advantage of Thailand and South Africa were presented in the case of labour cost, labour productivity, skilled labour, economic indicators, natural resources as well as technology, research and development. The methodology of the study was based on statistics obtained from different sources in South Africa and in Thailand. These included information from The Royal Thai Embassy in Pretoria. The data were obtained from institution like the Bank of Thailand, the South African National Productivity Institute and the Central Statistic Service of South Africa. The comparative advantage of factor endowments according to the H-O theory and the alternative theory were used in the comparison of both Thailand and South Africa. The result of this comparison clearly points to the fact that Thailand has a comparative advantage in labour intensive manufactures and agricultural land intensive products, while South Africa has a comparative advantage in minerals and higher technology. It is true to state that according to the findings of this study, Thailand has the potential to export labour intensive manufactures and agricultural land intensive products such as garments, fabrics, footwear & parts, computer & parts, rice and natural rubber. South Africa has the potential to export minerals and high technology products (raw material products, mineral products, steel & iron, pipe & parts, chemical products) to Thailand. The study succeeds in confirming the relation between comparative advantage and factor endowments of the H-O theory and the alternative theory. It is also clear that future trade prospects of the two countries are based on comparative advantage and factor endowment. Furthermore, the trade opportunities identified will be beneficial to South African and Thai businessmen.

The Post-colonial era trade relations between Europe and Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries has been regulated by a number of economic cooperation agreements, namely the Yaoundé, Lomé, and Cotonou Conventions to the current Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that had recently been concluded in the ECOWAS and SADC sub regions respectively. The EPAs negotiations have been marred with challenges particularly in Africa; with many countries having responded by not signing Interim EPAs and Nigeria has also stated they will not be concluding the EPA. Nigeria and South Africa have responded to the current negotiations in differing ways nonetheless their responses were somewhat similar. This study will attempt to understand and systematically explain Nigeria’s and South Africa’s positions on the EPAs negotiations process. In order to gain the understanding the study investigates whether EPAs negotiations stalled due to the influence and/or responses of Nigeria and South Africa? The factors involved in the negotiations that may explain the responses. What consequences the principle of reciprocity has on the responses Nigeria and South Africa? This research is going to be desk research using process tracing to systematically analyse the development of the negotiations between the EC and ACP countries particular attention being afforded to Africa and the resulting responses by Nigeria and South Africa. Some of the findings are that in the case of South Africa the principle of reciprocity was not a major factor in shaping South Africa’s responses to the negotiations, whereas the opposite holds true for Nigeria. Regional integration played a major part in the case of Nigeria. / MT2016