Since the 1980s, there has been growing recognition among developing countries that an essential foundation for sustainable growth is capital investment, both public and private. While Iraq is an oil-rich country, with substantial oil revenue, only a small proportion of it has been allocated to importing the capital that is most needed, while the rest has mainly been used for consumption purposes. The effects of the oil-driven state development, conflicts, sanctions, high unemployment and delayed reforms have significantly shaped Iraq’s economy and limited the potential for private-sector-led growth over the past 40 years. This conclusion is worrying for a country like Iraq, which has shown some downward trends in private and public investment, both in the total amounts and relative to GDP. This study, the first of its kind, empirically assesses the pattern of domestic private investment in Iraq and its key determinants over the past four decades. It also examines the issue of the complementarity (crowd-in effect) or substitutability (crowd-out effect) between public capital and private investment in the trend in economic growth. Finally, it evaluates the determinants of public investment, to reveal the indirect impacts oil revenue has on private investment through the increasing of public investment. The thesis employs time-series data and annual datasets covering 1970-2010. Both the ADF and the PP unit root tests are employed to test for the stationarity of the data. Johansen’s cointegration is used to establish the long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables in the models. The VECM is also utilized to examine the short-run dynamics between the variables. The main empirical results support the accelerator principle hypothesis of a positive relationship between GDP and private investment. The McKinnon-Shaw hypothesis is, however, not verified in the case of Iraq but there is some evidence that private investment is crowded in by public investment, and that oil revenue has an indirect effect on private investment.

Magister Legum - LLM / BITs signed prior to the 21st century are problematic. Some countries with BITs signed during this period have since reviewed those BITs and taken action to address the disadvantages the BITs held for the host nation or have either resorted to eradicating some of their BITs. In particular, developing countries that signed BITs with developed nations seem to be disproportionately disadvantaged in these agreements. This thesis highlights Kenya‟s current BIT situation and compares it in light of another developing country, South Africa, with regards to its BIT experience. Given that South Africa has undergone an extensive BIT review process and moves to change some of these BITs, this thesis compares and contrasts the Kenyan and South African experience. The study highlights the possible lessons that could be learnt from the South African BIT review experience and provides recommendations for the Kenyan government regarding its outdated BITs. The lessons and recommendations benefit not only Kenya but also other countries that are still to review their BITs as it adds to the literature on why it is important for countries with such BITs to revisit them and how best they can go about the review mechanism. In addition, the study is also significant in that it raises awareness of the use and effects of BITs, thereby enabling countries that enter into such agreements to make informed decisions.

To competitively operate in an environment where even the basic social needs of the population are not met, it makes business sense to uplift the stakeholders that form part of the business environment. With approximately five and a half billion rand spent on philanthropic activities in 2010 alone, it is important that this spend translates into a competitive advantage for the company.The purpose of this study was to explore the concept of philanthropy as understood by companies. Further to that, the intention of the research was to understand how engaging stakeholders, utilising resources available and the intention of the giving by the key decision makers, contributed towards achieving the competitive advantage of the company.Qualitative research in the form of interviews with the key decision makers in the companies in respect of giving was used for data gathering, along with secondary data in sustainability reports to support findings.The research found that competitive advantage can be gained by using corporate philanthropy as a tool. The paper proposes a framework based on the core theories that can be referenced to assist decision makers in determining which areas needs to be improved, in order to raise the competitiveness of the company by means of corporate philanthropy. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

This thesis explores risk management practices in global manufacturing investment. It reflects the growing internationalisation of manufacturing and the increasing complexity and fragmentation of manufacturing systems. Issues of risk management have become increasingly important in financial and company governance contexts not least because of growing international concerns about the consequences of unregulated risk. However while significant progress has been made in the awareness and articulation of financial risk there appeared to be little evidence of systematic management of risks associated with the globalisation of manufacturing despite the fact that ill-advised internationalisation projects could risk companies' futures. Investment risk management practice has evolved as risk analysis in global manufacturing investment from theoretical and practice perspectives. The need to actively manage risk has tended to be lost by the adoption of complex financial risk analysis methods in industrial investment projects. The approach adopted in this research was to undertake detailed case investigations in a cross section of industrial businesses at different levels of maturity in order to observe current practices, identify common principles and to seek to synthesise systematic approaches to risk management where appropriate. These field studies were conducted against a background of a detailed review of the literature and practice in finance and consulting and a detailed review of literature and practice in manufacturing strategy and system design. The key findings are as follows: (i) Elements of global manufacturing risk are managed by a variety of implicit and explicit methods, typically embedded in strategic and financial evaluations. There are no widely recognised comprehensive and systematic approaches to the analysis and mitigation of risks associated with global manufacturing investments. (ii) A broad review and analysis of global manufacturing investment projects identified key categories of investment risks and key dimensions of investment risk management. (iii) A very preliminary classification of global manufacturers from an investment risk management practice perspective, which may be helpful to companies in assessing their own risk management capabilities and behaviours. (iv) A prototype investment risk management process architecture is proposed based upon the key research findings. It presents a structured approach to the key risk management tasks and demonstrates their generality across a range of industrial environment. This provides confidence though not conclusive evidence that these methods might be applicable across a broad spectrum of manufacturing industries. The research findings extend the current understanding of risk management into the domain of global manufacturing strategy and provide the basis for more comprehensive and systematic assessment of risk in global investment projects. Further research will be required to validate the proposed risk management process and to explore the particular risks associated with different sectors, technologies, and business contexts.

The Canadian money market dates back to 1935 when Government of Canada treasury bills were first sold and the main impetus to its present status came with the introduction of day-to-day loans in 1954. Until 1954, the money market was used principally by the chartered banks and the Federal Government, and the main functions were to provide the former with liquid assets and the latter with a relatively inexpensive method of financing its activities. In the last decade many other institutions have started to participate in the market. On the borrowing side, provincial and municipal governments, and financial institutions including trust companies, finance companies, investment dealers and commercial banks have joined the Federal Government, and finally in 1958 non-financial corporations began to issue substantial sums of short-term notes. On the lending side are financial institutions wishing to keep a certain portion of their funds liquid and non-financial corporations with temporary excess cash. The last of these borrowers and lenders mentioned, the non-financial corporation, is the concern of this thesis which examines potentiality and use of securities with maturity from one day to three years. To appreciate the potentiality of the money market, the bond market, of which it is part, is first described and pertinent characteristics of bonds in general are discussed. The specific instruments pertaining to the money market are the following: Government of Canada treasury bills and short term bonds; short term provincial and municipal issues; finance company paper; chartered bank deposit receipts, U.S. swaps and acceptances; trust company guaranteed investment certificates; investment dealer loans and buy backs; and international instruments including letters of credit and Euro-dollars. The potentiality of the money market for the non-financial corporation is further enhanced when such activity is integrated with the cash flow of the company. The cash flow itself is affected by peculiarities of the industry such as seasonal peaks and troughs, and by factors related to individual firms, such as capital structure. From published statistical data and 298 responses to the questionnaires circulated by the author, the most pertinent findings were the predominance of Federal Government, bank, and trust company paper, the small difference in yields between different qualities of paper, and that rather than formalized rules for money market activity, corporate dealings were influenced mainly by intangible factors including attitudes of the treasurer regarding safety and yields of the instruments, bargaining between buyers and sellers, limitations imposed by boards of directors and banker relationships. While the factors mentioned above must continue to affect money market decisions a formalized approach is recommended and discussed. This approach can be geared to the limitations established by the intangible factors and industry and firm peculiarities, and it objectively examines the remaining alternatives. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

In the thesis the author attempts to discover whether or not The Value Line Investment Survey shows evidence of an ability to forecast "Probable Twelve Months Market Performance Rank," a ranking of stocks according to their probable relative price performance within the succeeding twelve months. To test the ability to forecast, the author determines the significance of the correlation between the ranking of stocks according to the forecast and the ranking of stocks according to the observed relative price performance within the year. The conclusion drawn is that The Value Line Investment Survey does not show evidence of a consistent ability to forecast "Probable Twelve Months Market Performance Rank." The author also presents a model of the process which may underly the generation of stock market price changes. The author tests the assumption of the independence of price changes, a part of the model, on the data of the thesis and finds that the test results do not refute the assumption. The model, the "Random Walk Hypothesis," is related to the ability of The Value Line Investment Survey to forecast "Probable Twelve Months Market Performance Rank." It is concluded that The Value Line Investment Survey has failed to show that its forecasts are superior to forecasts based solely on past prices where the market is assumed to follow a random walk. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Thesis analyses FDI flows to 9 of new member states of European Union basicly from other member states. FDI flows are described as a result of investment incetives, economic situation, political situation and atractivity of countries. The main aim is to compare countries FDI flows based on this characteristics.

Creditworthiness evaluation of company after realized administration real estate purcase using corporate loan or mortgage loan.

The paper deals with the role of FDI in a country's economic development. First the economic development and the role of FDI in this process is described for Czech Republic and Taiwan. Further, the relationships between the two countries and EU as a major international player are analyzed. Next a comparison of the economic development and FDI in both of the named countries is carried out. In the the mutual economic and FDI relationships between Czech Republic and Taiwan are analysed. These relationships are demosntrated on the case of taiwanese FDI in Czech Republic including the reasons which lead the investor's decisions.