A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters of Development Studies in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University Of Zululand, 2018 / The aim of this study is to assess the role of NGOs in addressing poverty, and it was conducted in the Mpumalanga province, under Nkomazi Local Municipality. This study situates the development of NGOs within the theoretical frameworks of Keynesianism, the neo-liberal economic system, and from the theory of NGOs as a third sector. The Keynesian system holds that increased government expenditure results in a corresponding increase in economic output. The Keynesians welfare system supports the active participation of government in the economy. However, at the height of the Keynesian economy, NGOs did not receive due attention. The policies of the Keynesian economy did not support NGOs until the role of the multilateral organisations rose to prominence, and it was then that NGOs gained recognition. Problems with Keynesian economics led to the emergence of neo-liberalism, and neo-liberalism shaped policy in a way that favoured economic growth through the Market. It was within the framework of neo-liberalism that NGOs arose to prominence. This occurred under the auspices of multilateral organisations which encouraged the rise of NGOs. However, the poor performance of the State and the Market, with regards to poverty and development gave rise to the emergence of NGOs as a third sector. Literature relating to this study further shows that the operation of NGOs as a third sector depended on factors such as leadership, management, adaptability, financial capacity, corruption, and accountability. The present study adopts a mixed-method approach. This entails the integration of positivism and interpretivism into a philosophy of post-positivism. Therefore, this study uses both qualitative and quantitative data. Qualitative data was collected through structured interviews, while quantitative data was collected by questionnaires. The qualitative data were analysed by content analysis, the quantitative data were analysed by SPSS. The findings of this study show that NGOs mostly experience the following challenges: high staff turnover, mostly because of low wages; limited resources, and a lack of permanent structures from which to work. Even though NGOs experience these challenges, the results of this study show that the NGOs in the study area are able to adapt and work in an environment characterised by limited resources. Lastly, regardless of the challenges experienced by NGOs, this study shows that NGOs have a role in poverty reduction. In terms of recommendations, this study recommends that NGO sponsors should pay attention to the challenges relating to the buildings structures where NGOs’ operate. The study also recommends that NGO sponsors have to review the wages of NGO workers against the wages of retails workers. Moreover, it is further recommended that NGO staff needed to be capacitated by developing some skills, such as proposal writing. Lastly, this study recommends that NGOs develop new strategies for sustaining themselves, such as starting other income streams. All-in-all, the study concludes that NGOs in the Nkomazi Local Municipality play a meaningful role in addressing symptoms of poverty.

This dissertation is divided into three distinct chapters looking at the theoretical and empirical relationship between monetary policy, inflation, and income distribution in industrialized countries. The first chapter investigates the effect of monetary policy on the income share of workers at the industry level in Canada and the United States. The second chapter studies the relationship between firms' markups and inflation during the 2021-22 inflation surge in select industrialized countries. The third chapter assesses the Taylor-rule framework of monetary policy with regards to an estimated central bank reaction function for several industrialized countries, analyzing its potential effects on the rentier income share over time. This dissertation makes several contributions to the economic literature, particularly in the field of post-Keynesian empirical macroeconomics.

No description available.

<p>This study investigates the responses of the labour movement, social policy advocacy organizations, and feminists to the downsizing and restructuring of the welfare state in Canada. Of interest in this research is whether these constituencies are in the initial stages of 're-conceptualizing' social welfare, given that the increasing degree of economic globalization and the rightward shift in political thinking in recent years have created a need for 'paradigm shift' in approaches to social policy among equality-seeking social movements.</p> <p>It is discovered that these three social movements (labour, social policy advocates, and feminists) are at varying stages in imagining and working to achieve a progressive alternative to the postwar welfare state. Some elements of the labour movement have clearly identified the economic and political roots of growing social inequality. Some elements of the social policy advocacy community are promoting comprehensive alternative economic and social policies to the ones currently dominating political discourse. The women's movement, as represented by the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, appears to be the furthest ahead in developing a theoretically grounded critique of neoconservative I neo-liberal social welfare restructuring, and in posing progressive alternatives to it.</p> <p>Theoretical issues which arise in regard to rethinking social welfare and reformulating social policy are discussed. There is also reference made to the strategic challenges which confront social movements within Canada and internationally, in their efforts to use social policy as a means of achieving greater social equality and an environmentally sustainable set of economic and political arrangements.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The NAIRU theory has become the mainstream theory in explaining unemployment in Europe and is often used to justify demands for a cutback of the welfare state, reducing unemployment benefits, reducing minimum wages, decentralizing collective bargaining etc. Close inspection reveals that it nonetheless shares some arguments with Post Keynesian and even Marxist theory. The paper proposes an underdetermined, encompassing NAIRU model, which is consistent with several theoretical tradtions. Depending on the closure with respect to demand formation and determination of the NAIRU itself, the model allows for New Keynesian, Post Keynesian and Marxist results. (author's abstract) / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

In this paper I explore the causal relationship between the strategic economic interdependence advanced by Western democracies after WWII and the "puzzle of participation" in US presidential elections. More specifically, I seek to illustrate first how economic convergence within the West and then the transition from Keynesian to monetarist policy rhetoric reflexively diminish the degree to which US working class voters can realistically petition their elected officials regarding the most salient matters of economic self-interest. My results indicate that from 1948-2004, the working public became more isolated from their most salient economic decisions, voted less often due to heretofore unexplored macroeconomic indicators.

Neither Austrian nor Post Keynesian school is part of contemporary economic mainstream, both schools explain business cycle theory by monetary influences. This thesis examinates, through analysis of these theories, whether there are any other common elements except of the fact that both are monetary theories of business cycle. The key question author tries to answer is if we can describe these theories as substitute or complement. In last part theoretical analysis is enriched by the scale, which reflects substitution or complementary nature of the theories.

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the FACULTY OF COMMERCE LAW AND MANAGEMENT SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS SCIENCES at the UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND / The design and implementation of the monetary policy in South Africa has been based on the idea of a trade-off between inflation and output growth. However, there is no consensus among empirical investigations on the existence of Phillips curve in the present times. While the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has instrument independence, it does not have goal independence, which implies that there is coordination between the monetary policy and other macroeconomic policies. Thus, if the SARB objectives are in line with the other policy objectives, there should be a relationship between monetary variables and real variables. This therefore shows that in the long-run, monetary policy cannot single-handedly bring about both sustained economic growth and employment creation (SARB, 2014). Thus this study explored inflation dynamics in South Africa by using the Hybrid new Keynesian Phillips curve (HNKPC) and the augmented Gordon’s models. The study firstly estimated the Hybrid new Keynesian Phillips curve model with a view to determine whether Phillips curve exists and ascertain whether the backward-looking or forward-looking components drive inflation dynamics in South Africa using OLS and GMM estimation techniques. The results show that the Phillips curve does not exist in South Africa using various measures of demand-side variable. These findings are robust across estimation methodologies as well as different measurements of inflation expectations and data frequency. While the findings indicated that economic agents in South Africa are both rational and adaptive in predicting inflation, the results clearly showed the dominance of forward looking component over the backward looking element in driving inflation. Secondly, given the focus of the South African monetary authority in maintaining stable inflation rates and the fact that monetary policy need to go hand-in-hand with other policies in order to ensure stable inflation and economic growth (Gruen, Pagan and Thompson, 1999), this study considered the expanded Gordon’s model with a particular focus on how fiscal policy determines the inflation process in South Africa. The purpose of the Gordon’s chapter is to verify the existence or non-existence of Phillips curve in an expanded model, within the context of an augmented “triangle” model while including the monetarist and fiscal side variables, thereby checking whether the PC relationship of recent studies is robust to model specification. Thus, the augmented Gordon’s model was estimated using a holistic approach of including the fiscalist, monetarist and the structuralist schools of thought, using the Vector autoregressive (VAR), vector error correction model (VECM) and innovation accounting techniques. The results confirm the non-existence of PC whereby output growth maintained a negative relationship with inflation rate, signifying no trade-off despite the expanded specification, while the results from output-gap model are inconclusive. Further results showed that the demand-side, fiscal factors and some of the structural variables contribute more to the inflation dynamics in South Africa. Thus the changes in inflation rate are as a result of changes in output growth, government deficit, electricity price and exchange rate. The results confirmed that the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level (FTPL) applies to the South African economy, whereby not only monetary policies should be considered in controlling inflation, but also fiscal policies. On the other hand, the importance of the determinants of inflation rate is not sufficient in observing the inflation dynamics in South Africa; therefore, this study concluded by investigating the level at which inflation becomes detrimental to output growth. In the context of the low levels of economic growth and high levels of unemployment in South Africa, the study analysed the output growth implications of the inflation targeting monetary policy of the South African Reserve Bank that targets an inflation band between three and six percent. Using the Threshold Autoregressive (TAR) and the Sample Splitting Threshold Regression (SSTR) techniques, this study investigated the nonlinear inflation-growth nexus in South Africa with the purpose of identifying the inflation rate band that optimize output growth. The results showed that South Africa is able to accommodate a higher level of inflation beyond the current inflation target band by increasing the band to between seven and nine percent in order to enhance output growth. Our findings support the argument of studies that indicate that moderately higher inflation rate will not be harmful to the economy. / MT2017

De acordo com León-Ledesma and Thirlwall (2002), o presente trabalho se propõe a testar a endogeneidade da taxa natural de crescimento para um conjunto amplo de países, no sentido do crescimento de longo prazo ser determinado pela demanda. Econometricamente, a principal hipótese a ser testada é a presença de não linearidade na Lei de Okun, que implica na existência de duas taxas naturais, cada uma correspondendo a um regime de crescimento. Utilizando dados anuais para o período de 1980 a 2007 e dados trimestrais para o intervalo entre 1980 e 2011, os resultados corroboram a hipótese de endogeneidade quando aplicada a metodologia proposta por LLT. Esta evidência se repete ao definir exogenamente os regimes de crescimento pelos métodos de Markov-Switching e threshold autoregressive regression (TAR) para os dados anuais, no entanto, para os dados trimestrais há indicações de endogeneidade e exogeneidade da taxa natural de crescimento. / Following León-Ledesma and Thirlwall (2002), this master\'s thesis aims to examine the sensitivity of the natural growth rate to the actual growth rate for a broad set of countries, based on demand-led growth theory. The main hypothesis being tested is the presence of non-linearities in Okun\'s Law, which means the existence of two natural growth rates, each corresponding to a growth regime. Using annual data over the period 1980-2007 and quarterly data over the period 1980-2011, the results support the idea that natural growth rate is dependent of the actual growth rate when applying LLT\'s methodology. This evidence repeats when establishing exogenously the regimes of growth by using Markov-Switching and threshold autoregressive regression (TAR) for the annual data, however for quarterly data this is less straightforward, having indication of endogenous and exogenous natural growth rate.

Os principais modelos de equilíbrio parcial e DSGE que estudam a dinâmica do investimento desconsideram questões centrais para a pesquisa desse tema e tem dificuldades em explicar resultados da literatura empírica. Defendemos que estudar a dinâmica do investimento como um sistema adaptativo complexo por meio de modelos de simulação baseados em agentes (ABMs) é uma alternativa promissora. Nessa dissertação motivamos, descrevemos, justificamos metodologicamente e construímos um ABM nos inspirando em modelos importantes da literatura e incorporamos às expectativas de demanda das firmas uma regra de revisão de otimismo e um mecanismo de interação em suas decisões de produção e investimento. Com isso, reproduzimos diversos fatos estilizados da literatura empírica e conseguimos testar os efeitos macroeconômicos de hipóteses teóricas relacionadas a fenômenos de contágio via confiança, motivações políticas e à reflexividade, presentes nas decisões das firmas. Nossos resultados colocam em dúvida a efetividade de mecanismos análogos à greve de investimentos, como meios dos empresários controlarem as políticas dos governos, mas confirmam que endogeneizar possíveis motivações políticas, ainda que subjetivas, no nível de confiança das firmas tem efeitos macroeconômicos substanciais. Ademais, nossos experimentos sugerem que i) tanto a evolução da produtividade, quanto dos salários reais são condições necessárias para o crescimento, ii) choques de confiança temporários tem efeitos de longo-prazo, iii) para que choques de pessimismo localizados contagiem a economia, eles precisam ser persistentes, iv) considerar o conceito de reflexividade tem consequências macroeconômicas importantes. Não encontramos evidências de que contrações fiscais do governo possam ser expansionistas, por meio de seus efeitos na confiança. / The main parcial equilibrium and DSGE models which study investment dynamics disregard core issues about this subject and have problems to explain results coming from the empirical literature. We argue that studying investment dynamics in a complex adaptive system by using Agent-Based Models is a promising alternative. In this work we motivate, describe, justify methodologically and build an ABM in line with important models from the literature and we incorporate to firms\' demand expectations an optimism revision rule and an interaction mechanism in their decisions to produce and invest. Thereby, we replicate many stylized facts from the empirical literature and we were able to test macroeconomic effects from theoretical hypothesis related to confidence-driven contagion phenomena, political motivation and reflexivity, present in firms\' decisions. Our results question the effectiveness of mechanisms analogous to the investment strikes, as a way for businessmen to control government policies, but confirm that endogenize possible political motivations, yet subjective, in the level of confidence of the firms has substantial macroeconomic effects. Furthermore, our experiments suggest that i) both productivity and real wages are necessary conditions for growth, ii) temporary confidence shocks have long-term effect, iii ) for localized shocks of pessimism, to contagion the economy, they need to be persistent, iv) consider the concept of reflexivity has important macroeconomic consequences. We find no evidence that government fiscal contractions can be expansionist, through their effects on confidence levels.