Crowdfunding is a method for financing a product, investment or project. It means that all people, individuals or companies that have an idea and Internet connection can outsource the idea on a crowdfunding platform. The purpose with this crowdfunding is that the creator turn to many people with small amounts of money. This paper focus on the users of crowdfunding platforms though. There are a lot of articles on the Internet about Crowdfunding but not so much information about the users. In a try to identify the people who uses this kind of financial method I have made a survey with 200 respondents. In the empirical chapter, every single question and the answer is displayed in a respective figure.

<p>NR 20140805</p>

There is extensive literature written about how to calculate Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) and its importance for marketing managers. However, there are not many studies made on how and when Return on Marketing Investment metrics are used in real life and if and how it is used to argue the value of a marketing activity. We have in this study with comparative cases investigated if and how ROMI metrics are used by managers outside the marketing department in their decision-making process. We based our case selection on how well they represented "Mad men to Math men" presented in Gilan and Hammarberg (2016)'s book "Get Digital or Die Trying." Mad men refers to old school "gut feeling" marketing decision making and "Math men" refers to modern digital marketers with decision making based on numbers and statistics. This study is made from the decision makers point of view with the purpose to gain a better understanding of if and how ROMI calculations are used in the decision-making process of senior management outside of the marketing department. This comparative case study consists of eight in-depth interviews, four in each company. The interviewees are all senior management outside of the marketing department. Our findings include that these two companies work very differently in how they make decisions in marketing investments. In Company 1 the marketing budget is decided by senior management outside of the marketing department, and this management may also cut the marketing budget if they see it necessary. In Company 2 the Segment Managers are responsible for the amount of the budget they would like to invest in marketing activities, and therefore they have more incentive to calculate the return of each investment and compare it with the return on other investments available to them. One of the reasons for the different ways of working can be a result of the different responsibility structure over the marketing budget. There is also a difference in how the two companies measure the success of the investment; Company 1 measure success in pure financial return and Company 2 measure success in increased market shares as well as financial return. Company 2 are using ROMI metrics to a greater extent than Company 1, who does not use any ROMI metrics. Marketers can in this study get an idea of how using ROMI metrics can help argue their case for further investments in marketing or cutting the budget for the marketing department. With the use of ROMI metrics, marketers can also evaluate which marketing activities are more efficient and thereby decide if they should continue with these activities or not. This study also shows that there is still, in some companies, a divide and conflict between the finance department and the marketing department. By shifting the responsibility of the marketing budget like in the case of Company 2, the adverse effect of this division on the marketing investments can be reduced. It can also be beneficial for the company to focus more on market shares than on sales and numbers. As digital marketing is growing stronger, the calculations of ROMI will become easier. Keywords: Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI), decision-making process, senior management, marketing department, finance department, ROMI metrics, real-life ROMI, comparative case study, Mad men, Math men

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has since Dunning in the academic literature, by international organisations and countries been viewed as an important precursor to determine the level of economic growth. FDI is suggested to have a positive effect on long-run economic growth in the host country. Previous studies show evidence that the positive effect of FDI on economic growth should not be taken for granted. The extent to which FDI promotes economic growth is largely based on complementary factors which include among others human capital, education, infrastructure, health, population and a technology gap. This essay investigates and estimates the effect of FDI and human capital on economic growth in 28 OECD countries over the period of 1996 to 2010. Three regression were conducted. Our results show over the period studied a positive effect of FDI on economic growth, the result are not statistically significant in all regressions. Population is significant in all regressions but has a mixed effect on economic growth. Human capital proxied as secondary education attainment shows a mixed effect on economic growth and is not significant in all regressions. For the remaining independent variables (see table 7), the results show that Life expectancy and Government expenditure have a significant effect on economic growth. However, Trade is not statistically significant in the regressions.

Ma thèse aboutit à un programme de recherche qui étudie l'investissement (et l'épargne) sous trois angles différents. Il renseigne sur 1) le comportement d'épargne des pays riches en pétrole, 2) la formation des prix et la dynamique de l'investissement sur le marché pétrolier, et 3) le rôle des rachats d'actions dans l'inhibition de l'effet positif d'une politique monétaire accommodante sur l'investissement au niveau des entreprises. Le point commun sous-jacent de ces trois axes de travail est la compréhension des facteurs qui influencent les décisions d'investissement au niveau de l'entreprise, de l'industrie ou du pays. Le premier chapitre de ma thèse, External Saving and Exhaustible Resource Extraction, aborde précisément la question de la gestion épuisable des ressources face à l'incertitude. En reliant le comportement d'extraction et d'économie dans un cadre théorique cohérent, ce chapitre contribue à deux veines de la littérature qui se sont développées séparément jusqu'à plus récemment. Le deuxième chapitre, L'effet retardateur du stockage sur l'investissement : Les données du secteur pétrolier américain continuent d'explorer le rôle de l'incertitude, mais cette fois-ci, elles analysent à la fois la dynamique des prix et celle des investissements lorsque les décisions d'investissement sont irréversibles. Le dernier chapitre de cette thèse, Rachat d'actions, politique monétaire et coût de la dette, porte sur une étude empirique des déterminants de l'investissement. Partant de la structure du capital des entreprises, cette partie de ma thèse porte sur le rôle des rachats dans le détournement de la dette à faible coût des investissements et de l'emploi. / My thesis culminates into a research program that studies investment (and saving) from three different perspectives. It informs on 1) the saving behaviour of oil-rich countries, on 2) price formation and investment dynamics in the oil market, and on 3) the role of share buybacks in muting the positive effect of accommodative monetary policy on firm-level investment. The underlying common thread among these three work streams is understanding factors that mediate the investment decisions at the firm, industry, or country level. The first chapter of my thesis, External Saving and Exhaustible Resource Extraction, addresses precisely the issue of exhaustible resource management in the face of uncertainty. In linking the extraction and saving behavior under a coherent theoretical framework, this chapter contributes to two veins of the literature that have developed separately until more recently. The second chapter, The Delaying Effect of Storage on Investment: Evidence from the US Oil Sector, continues to explore the role of uncertainty but this time analyses both price and investment dynamics when investment decisions are irreversible. The last chapter of this thesis, Share Buybacks, Monetary Policy and the Cost of Debt, turns it attention to an empirical investigation of the determinants of investment. Starting from the capital structure of firms, this part of my thesis focuses on the role of repurchases in diverting low-cost debt away from investment and employment.

No description available.

Includes bibliography. / This thesis addresses institutional investment management regarding mining capital investment (analysis, decision-making and administration). Emphasised is information processing and computer strategy to support mining investment recommendations. The topic is inter-disciplinary: mining, investment and information system/ computers. It is non-innovative in these individual areas. However, their integration here into a comprehensive strategy contributes to a poorly documented management area. This strategy minimises differences between mining and non-mining institutions as investors. The documentation avoids the theory of economics, investment techniques, stock exchange operations, minerals technology and computers. In deriving a total strategy, the objectives are to: * Identify practical problems in mining investment analysis. * Formulate the broad framework for problem solution. * Examine the existing analytical and administrative procedures. * Provide guidelines for more effective and efficient procedures. * Forecast technical developments over the next decade. The objectives were examined against personal observations during a diversified career in mining and commerce: The thesis was conceived after three years in active mining investment analysis. It matured subsequently in the commercial computer environment; but is firmly rooted in twelve years of earlier practical experience in mineral exploration and mining. The opinions expressed were influenced by contact with technical and financial mining directors, stock brokers, economists, mining and other sector analysts, portfolio and investment managers.

In this study, the researcher employed an inductive qualitative approach to explore the rationale and dimensions of corporate social investment (CSI) practice in South Africa. While the globalised CSI literature is robust, the South African literature is fragmented and insufficient, despite the growing social need for this type of funding in the context of South Africa. Thus, with this paper, the researcher fills this research gap by providing an exploratory analysis of the structure and evolution of CSI practice in South Africa. The motivation behind this research is to use the research to optimise the social impact that CSI participation can provide, as well as integrating corporate funding into the broader approach of addressing the country's poor socioeconomic conditions. In the study, the researcher covered a sample of 15 CSI professions operating in positions in either large South African corporations or established NGOs, with an average CSI experience of 13 years. The results of the inductive qualitative analysis show that the CSI functions operated using a traditional corporate function structure. The history and rationale of CSI practice have been key elements in defining current CSI practice. Initially, governmental regulation resulted in adherence strategies. However, growing social considerations have shifted CSI policy from adherence to impact. This has driven the growing sophistication in CSI practice in the country. The researcher breaks down this evolution and discusses the key strengths and weaknesses of each element to provide sufficient detail to the function. The findings are used to derive recommendations for CSI best practice. Internal commitment, sustainability, process management and key stakeholder relationships are prioritised in these recommendations. The exploratory findings provide a baseline in accordance with which more statistically robust or comprehensive research methods can be used to assess the identified elements of CSI more thoroughly and in more depth. The research provides a generalised benchmark for corporations to assess their CSI practice against an established peer group, while providing ideas about improving their CSI practice going forward.

0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu

0 / SPK / specialcollections@tulane.edu