Research and development (R&D) covering diseases that disproportionately affect developing nations is grossly inadequate. In particular it has been noted over a long period that governments of countries with high tuberculosis (TB) disease burden under invest in TB R&D, despite having 40% of the world’s notified TB cases. For instance, South Africa’s (SA) annual expenditure on TB R&D, of US$1,2 million in 2012, is insignificant relative to its disease burden, of 1 003 per 100,000 population. New tools are required to stop TB; these tools require R&D investment. However a recent report has noted that for the first time in eight years, global spending on TB R&D decreased in 2012 compared with the previous year. This drop in R&D investment threatens to undermine the possibility of any future insights from TB research. The important question remains: how can public investment in TB R&D be stimulated or incentivised, especially within those countries of high prevalence and sizeable R&D budgets (such as India, SA, China and Russia)? In an attempt to answer such a question, this research followed a quantitative, case study methodology based on secondary data analysis of information from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the SA National Strategic Plan (NSP) 2012-2016, looking at the costs associated with TB treatment in SA and identified areas of potential savings as a consequence of well directed R&D. For additional information on external funding and TB R&D investment, the study used the Organisation for Economic and Development (OECD) and Treatment Action Group (TAG) data. A return on investment estimation method for suitable R&D projects was then used to compute the optimal TB R&D investment range. The results of the research show that there are higher returns on the optimization of TB drug regimens versus new drug development. The argument proposed by this research is that further TB R&D expenditure can be justified from a purely economic return on investment consideration, considering that expenditure of public funds on TB treatment is high and significant savings can be made through improvements to the current drug regimen optimisation. This report will help policy makers in increasing public health R&D expenditure from present levels to those targets set by the World Health Organisation’s Consultative Expert Working Group (CEWG) and others. This return on investment will only be realised if public-funded R&D is focussed more directly on public health priorities. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / lmgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

M.Com. (Business Management) / The study focuses on the return on marketing investment (ROMI) in the life insurance industry in South Africa. Although this is a growing industry, it is characterised by high competitiveness and similar product offerings from the different insurance providers. Therefore, in competing for the larger market share, the companies differentiate themselves by relying more on their unique strengths. They compete by promoting themselves and their products through various above-the-line and below-the-line marketing activities and campaigns in order to drive sales, build awareness, manage reputations, and to be top of mind to consumers. This study focuses on establishing whether these various marketing activities are measured to determine whether they contribute to the bottom line/ profit margins (basic purpose of ROMI) and to what extent. The ultimate goal is to establish whether ROMI is considered as being important to measure in the life insurance industry and whether spending on marketing activities does contribute to profit margins. A total of 16 recognised life insurance companies were identified and a sample size of seven companies selected. The sampling frame consisted of marketing managers, who happened to be heads of departments in this case. Structured interviews were conducted with these managers, and feedback was transcribed and analysed. Only marketing managers were interviewed as they are directly responsible for the marketing budget, and are accountable for marketing spending and the overall success of the department. It was identified in the study that in order to measure ROMI, it starts by being accountable for the marketing spending. The overall results of the study indicate that spending on marketing does contribute to profits margins and that ROMI is considered by the life insurance industry as important to measure. The study was limited only to the Gauteng province, thus it can be generalised to the life insurance companies in South Africa, but cannot be generalised to other insurance industries, e.g. short-term insurance, thus allowing for the possibility of a comparative study in the future, in addition to future studies listed in chapter 5.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. / Bibliography: leaves 84-85. / by David Glenn Naugle. / M.S.

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This thesis includes four essays, of which each comprises two original contributions. Based on this thesis’ eight contributions, we add knowledge or understanding to the literatures on responsible investment, research output analyses and investment performance evaluation. First, we develop the first generic, reliable approach to benchmark research area output (e.g. journal articles or books), which we expect to appeal to governments’ increasing interest in monitoring their research funding investments. Second, we apply this approach to the research area of responsible investment, which is currently backed by an about $ 7 trillion industry. We find that the (quality weighted) quantity of responsible investment’s research output is statistically significantly under-proportional compared with peer research areas. One of several explanations for this result lies in the intransparency of the current responsible investment literature. Third, we develop an approach to research synthesis, which improves a research area’s transparency without experiencing many weaknesses of conventional literature reviews. We title this approach Influential Literature Analysis (ILA). Fourth, we apply ILA to the relatively intransparent responsible investment literature. One of our many findings is that responsible assets with their ceteris paribus under-proportional total risk might appear artificially unattractive when assessed by the most common investment performance measure, the Sharpe ratio, which is biased in favour of high risk assets due to its currently unsolved negative excess return problem. Fifth, we develop a generic, reliable and robust solution to the negative Sharpe ratio problem, which investors can customise according to their specific increasing incremental disutility of risk functions. Six, we generalise our solution to the negative Sharpe ratio problem, which allows us to solve the negative (excess) return problems of over twenty other investment performance measures. Seventh, we develop independent, statistically sophisticated tests of the sufficiency and quality of suggested solutions to the negative Sharpe ratio problem, since all existing tests a-priori assume the superiority of a specific solution. In contrast, our tests are only based on the Sharpe ratio itself and two basic axioms of investment theory. Hence, they are conceptually unrelated to our solutions. Eighth, we apply these tests using two different data samples to all existing solutions to the negative Sharpe ratio problem. We find that investors are best advised to use our solutions, the H⁶-, H⁷- or H⁸-measure, in their evaluation of investment performance from a Sharpe ratio like perspective.

by Ho King-sang. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1981. / Bibliography: leaf 56.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2000. / "February 2000." / Includes bibliographical references. / Three studies were conducted to analyze the relationship between public infrastructure investment and regional economic performance. The first study examines the literature on economic development and productivity growth. I show that conflicting results from studies by other analysts are the likely result of poor public capital data spanning to short an interval, and an inadequate modeling framework. Public investment may generate small improvements in productivity, but models understate economic impacts owing to the public goods character of some forms of public capital. The second study explores the relationship between economic distress and public infrastructure investment. I use a sample of U.S. counties to analyze public investment according to level of economic distress. With simple investment models, I estimated infrastructure needs for counties with apparent shortfalls. I analyzed the needs-estimates in a series of case studies in which jurisdiction planning and budget personnel were consulted about the accuracy of the estimates. I show that short-run economic distress is not to be linked to public infrastructure investment. Over the long-run, investment varies by level of distress, but as a consequence of private residential investment. The needs-estimating models were reasonably accurate, but missing investment data proved troublesome. Counties proved to be a poor unit of analysis for infrastructure needs, as since significant variation was observed among jurisdictions within counties. The third study demonstrates the need for better estimates of public infrastructure capital stock. I prepared new capital stock estimates for two regions using local investment data and survey-based public capital service lives. I surveyed one thousand jurisdictions in the New England region and the state of Texas. Survey-based service-lives seem to differ significantly from estimated lives. Stock estimates using local investment data and survey-based service-lives produce dramatic differences compared to estimated stocks at the state and regional level. The new data, however, performed just as poorly as other series when used to estimate aggregate production functions. Prior analysts' understanding the relationship between economic performance and public infrastructure investment has been limited because of poor data, and inadequate appreciation of infrastructure's inherent complexity. The research presented here demonstrates that significant improvements are possible and worth undertaking. / by Nicholas O. Rockler. / Ph.D.

Orientador: Johan Hendrik Poker Junior / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Ciências Aplicadas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T13:12:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Oliveira_SilasFerreiraReisde_M.pdf: 1466220 bytes, checksum: 781775ebb21394d361b2c05def677f90 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: As organizações na atualidade necessitam ser eficientes no investimento e gestão dos recursos internos estratégicos para serem competitivas no contexto da globalização. Um dos recursos organizacionais é o capital intelectual, que pode ser entendido como a somatória do conhecimento na organização que agrega valor, e que segundo alguns autores é composto pelo capital humano, estrutural e relacional. Assim é importante a sua mensuração, uma vez que é um recurso que pode ser aprimorado, propiciando melhor retorno pelo seu investimento. No estudo foi utilizado para mensuração do capital intelectual o modelo VAIC¿ que utiliza dados contábeis para a mensuração da eficiência do capital intelectual na criação de valor. A pesquisa teve como objetivo geral estimar a distribuição de retorno na margem de criação de valor do investimento nos componentes do capital intelectual na base amostral empregada. Para avaliar a margem de criação de valor foi utilizada a diferença entre o ROIC e o WACC. Foram utilizados na pesquisa dados disponibilizados no Balanço Social IBASE, no demonstrativo de valor adicionado (DVA) e na base Thomson Reuters, em uma observação não balanceada entre 1998 e 2012 sobre 48 empresas em sua maioria de capital intensiva no Brasil. No estudo foi utilizada a técnica da regressão multivariada de dados em painel para avaliar a influência do investimento no capital intelectual em retorno na margem de criação de valor para a base amostral. Também o estudo utilizou a Simulação de Monte Carlo para extrapolar a distribuição dos componentes do capital intelectual. Como resultado foi possível concluir que as empresas da base amostral têm a possibilidade de aumentar a margem em criação de valor, ou seja, a margem entre o ROIC e o WACC, através do investimento no capital humano. Isso ocorre porque há um melhor retorno pelo investimento nas pessoas da organização (HCE), do que o investimento no capital estrutural (SCE) na base amostral. Também foi obtido como resultado no estudo, ao empregar a simulação de Monte Carlo, uma probabilidade de 38,99% de o retorno do investimento no capital intelectual ser negativo. Dessa maneira é importante para as empresas a aplicação de técnicas de controle, como programas de melhoria contínua da qualidade, objetivando reduzir o risco do investimento no capital intelectual sobre a criação de valor. Esta pesquisa pode ser considerada como um estudo inicial sobre o uso de modelos de pesquisa operacional para mensuração de capital intelectual no Brasil / Abstract: Organizations nowadays need to be efficient in investment and management of strategic internal resources to be competitive in the context of globalization. One of organizational resources is the intellectual capital that can be understood as the sum of knowledge in the organization that aggregate value, and according to some authors is composed of human, structural and relational capital. Therefore it is important its mensuration, because it is a resource that can be improved, providing better return for its investment. In study was used the VAIC¿ model to measure the intellectual capital, that uses accounting data to measure the efficiency of intellectual capital in creating value. The research had as main objective to estimate the distribution of return in margin of value creation on investment in the components of intellectual capital on the employed sample basis. To assess the value creation margin was used the difference between ROIC and WACC. Were used in the research data available on the IBASE Social Balance, the value added statement (DVA) and Thomson Reuters base, in an unbalanced observation between 1998 and 2012 about 48 companies mostly capital intensive in Brazil. In the study was used the technique of multivariate regression analysis of panel data to evaluate the influence of investment in intellectual capital of return on margin of value creation for the employed sample basis. Also the study used the Monte Carlo Simulation to extrapolate the distribution of the components of intellectual capital. As a result it was concluded that the companies in the sample basis have the possibility to increase the margin on value creation, in other words, the margin between ROIC and WACC by investing in human capital. This happen because there is a better return by investing in people of organization (HCE), than investing in structural capital (SCE) on the sample basis. It was also obtained as a result of the study, by employing a Monte Carlo simulation, a probability of 38.99% of the return on investment in intellectual capital be negative. Thus, is important for companies to apply control techniques, such as continuous quality improvement programs aimed to reducing the risk of investment in intellectual capital on value creation. This research can be considered as an initial study on the use of operational research models to measure intellectual capital in Brazil / Mestrado / Pesquisa Operacional / Mestre em Pesquisa Operacional

The object of this diploma thesis is to make economical evaluation of the investment. This investment is aimed at the area of improving the quality of environment in surroundings of Cementary Plant, a.s. by realisation of by-pass investment into separate dust-exhausting of rotary kiln at the same time. Cementary Plant, a.s. has a place in a market of cementary products especially with dry coat-plasters and mortary mixtures. Environment requirements are extremely strict and their following is highly costly because of the established emission limits. In this diploma thesis I am going to attend an analysis of elaborated investment project, its evaluation and defining realisation benefits.