In this dissertation the theory of solvency assessment for long-term insurers is reviewed and how it evolved. Key international bodies and standards are identified and selected jurisdictions’ solvency frameworks are reviewed. The South African framework required by legislation introduced in 1998 is compared to these standards. Solvency capital requirements, valuation methods and risk management standards are the key areas considered. The financial results of a model office according to the South African requirements are compared to the financial results modelled stochastically according to the identified international standards. It is shown that the South African framework does not meet international standards. The key problem areas are the prescribed nature of the solvency capital requirement, the onerous treatment of policy cancellations and the treatment of new business. The role of actuaries in solvency assessment is also investigated. South Africa’s statutory-actuary role is compared with similar international roles. It is concluded that although similar international roles, notably the appointed actuary of the UK, have evolved the role of the statutory actuary has remained the same.

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

In partial fulfillment of the Degree: Master of Commerce (Accountancy), University of the Witwatersrand, October 2017 / This research examines through the use of survey data which key factors around a companies‟ industry positioning, strategic decisions and internal qualitative capabilities, are considered by financial analysts when preparing their financial forecasts. The research covered buy-side and sell-side analysts in South Africa. The results were however found to be non-conclusive and did not align to previous research on this matter. Comparisons between analysts covering the same company were performed with consistencies found on average across all variables. It is interesting to note that when a detailed analysis and comparison was performed by individual variable for analysts covering the same company, different views on some of the variables were identified between buy-side and sell-side analysts, therefore supporting the research obtained during the literature review. It was found based on the tests performed that the factors which have an impact on forecasted financials relate to superior product/service strategy, innovation and ability to execute strategy. These variables were however noted not to be consistent across all the financial forecast factors and are contradictory to the research highlighted in the literature review as well as the outcomes of the original study, ie. There are additional factors which are considered important. Further research is recommended on analyst behaviour in South Africa. / GR2018

The relationship between finance and the real economy which has been the subject of centuries old debates, gained renewed prominence with the relative and unprecedented growth of the financial sector over the last few decades. Finance has changed not only in terms of its size compared to other sectors, but also in terms of the nature of its products, and how it affects outcomes in the real economy. This has become known as financialisation. Research in other places has shown that the financial sector has grown at the expense of the real economy, as it has negatively impacted real investment. This occurred against the backdrop of non-financial corporations (NFCs) diverting more of their surpluses to the financial sector in the form of financial payout and financial investment. This research project studies the relationship between financialisation and the real economy in South Africa. Using aggregated data of all listed firms (with the exception of financial companies) on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange between 1971 and 2012 the impact of financialisation on real investment is empirically tested. Two channels in the form of financial payout (dividend and interest payments) and financial income (dividend and interest income) through which funds flow between the real economy and finance are analysed. We find that increased financial activity by NFCs may have a negative impact on real capital investment. Financial income presents more robust results than financial payout which may be an indication that the crowding out effect is a serious problem in South Africa.

For any developing country, infrastructure is at the core of economic growth and development. South Africa has a modern and well-developed transport infrastructure. The air and rail networks are the largest on the continent, and roads in good condition. To this degree of quality and quantity the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether or not public infrastructure investment contributes to economic growth, which is denoted as GDP per capita in this paper. The period of research is from 1960-2017. The Granger Causality method is applied, to find if a causal relationship exists between these two variables. Additionally, a log-log n OLS name of regression regression will beis run to see how variables, other than public infrastructure investment, affect GDP per capita. The endogenous growth theory is used as the main theory, in order to capture the essence of how the government endogenously affects output per capita in an economy. Findings reveal that there is a unidirectional relationship between public infrastructure investment and economic growth in South Africa. The direction of the causal relationship runs from public infrastructure investment to GDP per capita. Additionally, the infrastructure investment is found to be significant in the logged regression.  run. Which could impliesy that it affects economic growth. For further interest, a dummy variable was added in the regression to check whether the structural break in 1994 in South Africa has significantaffects the interpretation of the results.  changes in interpretation of results.This yielded in no significant changes in the results for infrastructure investment and GDP per capita.  (structural break and more important findings) (variables?) (what organisations can use these findings forFurther, Oorganisations and policy makers can use this paper as an indicator of how infrastructure investment plays a role in an economy, especially in developing countries.

Essay I: Governance surrounding dividend initiation. According to the free cash flow hypothesis, managers prefer to invest surplus cash, even in value reducing projects, rather than release it to shareholders. Yet, previous studies of dividend payout conclude that managers pay more in dividends when they are entrenched, supporting the substitute model... The results indicate that initiating firms have stronger shareholder rights, in contrast with much of the prior research on continuous divident payout. Firms with lower entrenchment index are more likely to initiate dividends... Essay II: Earnings management surrounding dividend initiation. Prior research tests earnings management surrounding changes in dividend payout and researchers conclude that the earnings management is a means of amplifying the dividend signal to the market. However, dividend initiation is a unique event. If initiation represents signaling, similar to a dividend increase, then management will manage earnings upward. If, on the other hand, divident initiation is better explained by the free cash flow hypothesis, then initiation may be entered into with caution or reluctance by management. / by Deborah Drummond Smith. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

O presente trabalho se propôs a estudar os efeitos do imposto de importação sobre o nível de investimento das empresas nacionais beneficiadas e sobre o valor de mercado dessas empresas. O mercado estudado foi dos Estados Unidos, pois graças a uma base de dados diferenciada da NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH (NBER), que vincula a alíquota do imposto do produto a um setor, foi possível fazer a análise entre investimento e esse imposto utilizando-se do método de mínimos quadrados. Para analisar o efeito sobre o valor de mercado das empresas foi feito um estudo de evento. As conclusões são de que uma variação positiva nessa alíquota faz com que as empresas aumentem seus níveis de investimento. Esse efeito é maior em empresas com maior rentabilidade e menor nas empresas que tem melhores oportunidades de investimento (medido pelo Q de Tobin). No estudo de eventos, em um dos dois eventos analisados o aumento da alíquota teve impacto positivo no valor de mercado das empresas beneficiadas. A principal implicação desses resultados é que essa política protecionista realmente beneficia o setor protegido fazendo com que as empresas invistam mais, principalmente as mais lucrativas. / This dissertation proposes to study the effects of import tariffs on the investments and market value of the national firms benefited by it. This study uses an American database, because thanks to a unique database of the NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH (NBER), which associates the import tariffs rate to an industry sector, it was possible to analyze between investments and tariffs, using the method of least squares. To analyze the effect on the market value of the companies an event study was used. The conclusion is that a positive variation on tariffs will lead to an increase on the firm’s investment level. This effect is more significant on firms with more profitability and less significant on firms that have better investment opportunities (measured by Tobin’s Q ratio). In the event studies, in one case the increase on import tariffs had a positive influence on the market value of the benefited companies. The most important implication of this results is that this protectionist policy really benefits the protected sector of the economy making its companies invest more, specially the most profitable ones.

Existing literature reports a puzzle about the forward foreign exchange rate premium over the spot foreign exchange rate. The premium is often negatively correlated with subsequent changes in the spot rate, which is considered to defy economic intuition and possibly violate market efficiency. Rational explanations include non-stationary risk premia and econometric misspecifications, and the puzzle as a guide to profitable trading. Actually, the puzzle consists of three aspects of anomalies: volatility, persistence, and unbiasedness. The puzzle has not yet solved fully thus far. / In the latter part of the thesis, we try to explore the behavioral aspects of the investors in the foreign currency markets (spot and forward markets). We discuss asset prices in an economy where investors derive direct utility from their consumption and adjust their utility based on the concept of habit formation and "catching up with Joneses", therefore explaining thus far the formidable unbiasedness anomaly to a certain extent. Simulation results exhibit properties similar to what has been observed in historical data. / This thesis suggests firstly that there may be no real puzzle. A simple model fits the data. Starting from examining the relations between the excess return of speculation in foreign currency forward markets and the change rates of the return rate on equity (stock) portfolio and the change rate of futures price on stock index as well as foreign currencies where the stock markets and futures market are active, publicly traded, and highly transparent markets, the source of the risk premia in the future change in spot rate has been analyzed in detail. We believe that the panel data analysis is in place for the puzzle based on its nature. In this thesis we find that the future change in spot foreign exchange rate correlate with both forward premium and especially the change rate in stock index or the change rate of futures settlement price on the stock index or on the currencies, which implies that the investors compare and employ the profitable opportunities across financial markets not just act in only one market such as just foreign exchange forward market, thus maximizing the utility or efficiency of their funds. In addition, the change rate of futures price has rather impacts on the excess return of speculation in forward currency markets, thus establishing the relation between OTC markets and publicly traded markets of foreign exchange. / Tan Yue. / "January 2007." / Adviser: Jia He. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: A, page: 4006. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract in English and Chinese. / School code: 1307.

by Au Wai-keung, Francis. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Bibliography: leaves 48-51.

Inward foreign direct investment (FDI) is believed to be a carrier of advanced knowledge to host countries, but how regional factors might impact FDI spillover effects is still uncertain. Meanwhile, regional industrial structure, i.e. specialization and diversity, has been frequently discussed in the literature, but there is no consensus about which type of industrial structure can promote regional innovation. In this thesis, the above two streams of literature are integrated and a theoretical model is proposed in which regional FDI and industrial structure are hypothesized to have direct and interactive effects on regional innovativeness. Provincial- and firm-level panel datasets (2000-2010) were compiled for empirical analyses. The results indicate that a foreign presence is beneficial for both regional and firm innovation capability while these associations are contingent on the level of industrial structure, namely the degree of specialization and diversity. A greater level of regional specialization is less likely to facilitate regional innovators to gain positive spillovers from FDI while an increase in diversity is more likely to reinforce the positive effects of foreign presence on regional innovativeness. As China has become the biggest FDI recipient country in the world in recent years and the Chinese industrial structure has been changing rapidly during the last few decades, an empirical study in the Chinese context would be ideal to examine the debate on the roles of industrial structure and FDI in promoting regional innovativeness. Overall, this research aims to advance the understanding about the moderating role of regional industrial structure in affecting the spillover effect of FDI on regional and firm innovation. The findings not only provide empirical evidence for the specialization versus diversity debate, but also highlight the essential role of contextual factors in facilitating regional innovativeness.