This thesis investigates the impact of financial liberalisation policies on finance-growth relationship and financial crises. Analysis of recent trends and economic performance of financially developed and stable economies raises at least two very important questions that seem to have strong analytical connections. The first question is associated with the link between financial development and economic growth and the second question focuses the possible association between the policies of financial liberalisation and financial vulnerability. In this thesis we aim to shed light on some of the aspects that have gained so much attention from academics and policy makers during the last two decades. First we address whether excessive liberalisation has caused financial development to lose its effectiveness in generating economic growth. We employ a dynamic panel data analysis for 88 countries over the period of 1973 to 2005. Our index for the financial sector liberalisation covers seven aspects: credit controls and reserve requirements, interest rate controls, entry barriers, state ownership, policies on securities markets, banking regulations and restrictions on capital market. We use a comprehensive financial development indicator constructed through principal component analysis of five different indicators: bank private credit to GDP ratio, liquid liability to GDP ratio, deposit money bank assets to total bank assets ratio, deposit money bank assets to GDP ratio, and bank credit to bank deposit ratio. The results indicate that the positive effect of financial development on long-run growth continues to decline as the financial sector becomes more liberalised. Our results are robust to changes in the financial development indicators and the dis-aggregation of the financial liberalisation index. Second, we examine the possibility for an optimal sequence of financial sector reforms that may reduce an economy’s vulnerability to financial crises. We construct a distance measure from the countries that followed a more gradual approach and liberalised their capital account at a later stage. Our analysis shows that the experience of the countries that delayed or followed a very gradual approach for the liberalisation of their capital accounts have high level of implications to those countries that allowed for shock approach or liberalised their capital account before bringing reforms in other sectors.

This diploma thesis analyses electro energy market organisation in the European Union and the United States of America. Liberalisation tendencies occurred in both areas during the 90's. The liberalisation is supposed to increase quality and reliability of electricity supplies as well as decrease electricity price. Electro energy industry belongs to the so called network industries, whose specifics prevent smooth liberalisation process. The vertically integrated companies or utilities in the US behave monopolistically on the market making the industry work inefficiently. Consequently, prices paid by customers are too high. The liberalisation should enable new participants to enter the market more easily as result of competition introduction and thereby also lead to pricing based on supply and demand interaction. The thesis also deals with price development in European and American areas liberalised to different extent. You can see number of similar tendencies and problems despite different way of electro energy market organisation in the EU and the US.

Magister Commercii - MCom / Regionalism has become a prominent feature of the current international landscape. During the last decade and a half there has been an increasing number of countries that opted to form regional blocs. 1 Developing countries fear of marginalisation and their need to be part of a larger economic entity has been an important motivation in signing regional trade agreements (RTA's).

Investigates how the SADC achieves trade liberalisation and ensure human rights protection in SADC at the same time. Discusses how the right–based approach on trade can successfully be used as a tool for the advancement of human rights in the SADC context. / A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Prof Fredrick Jjuuko, Faculty of Law, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. / LLM Dissertation (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa -- University of Pretoria, 2009. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

This thesis analyses economic nationalism from a historical perspective and it examines its forms and transformation based on the case study of France. The first chapter offers a brief introduction to the concept of economic nationalism. It places it into a larger context and it addresses its elements, forms and particularities. The following section attempts at a closer look at the doctrines of economic nationalism, emphasising differences in policy content in correlation with historical and political context. The third chapter closely examines the evolution of the French economic thinking within the process of nation-state building and economic modernisation. It attempts at tracing elements of economic nationalism and observing their transformation within changing historical circumstances. Finally, the last chapter focuses on the occurrence of economic nationalism within the French economic model in the twentieth century and under conditions of accelerated markets liberalisation and economic integration.

Through empirical research the researcher gained an in-depth knowledge regarding the growth trends in the South African manufactured export industry as well as the factors determining the patterns of growth and champion industries. Finally, recommendations that may be used by relevant authorities and scholars were made. To researchers, a study at disaggregated level into the growth trends of each manufactured export sub-sector should be central to future research. / Dissertation (MA (Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Economics / unrestricted

Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / The Great Lakes Region has long been viewed as a land of untapped economic potential due to, amongst other factors, the failures of the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (ECGLC)1 and the Rwandan genocide. The region has many opportunities and common initiatives despite tensions among its core countries. Cross-borders trade, common infrastructures and common border security zones operations have shown that regional integration is possible within the region. From the Dar-Es-Salaam Conference and Declaration2 in November 2004, and thereafter, the signing of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) Pact3 in Nairobi, in 2006 the Group of Friends (GoFs) and the member states plus international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) took a stance to build for the future of the region. They created this new regional integration initiative in order to achieve peace. Peace has multiple dimensions and implications among which poverty alleviation and building of common future in the region are crucial and conducive to increase of population resources.4 Poverty alleviation, sustainable management of common infrastructures, trade and security can be effectively achieved by integrating economically the region.

No / The study of interest representation is well established in the context of the European Union1 (EU). For more than five decades, scholars have debated the role played by interest groups (particularly business interests) in comparison to other policy actors in the 'bottom-up' process of European integration. Recently, scholarship about the EU as a political system has shifted to focus on the 'top-down' impact of the EU on national and sub-national actors, a process referred to as Europeanization. This article addresses lacunae in that literature and brings fresh evidence to light by exploring the EU effect on UK and French business interest representation. Drawing on a combination of political and management studies concepts and tools, this article compares and contrasts UK and French firms located in two industrial sectors directly affected by the EU's single market programme, namely the telecommunications and energy sectors. The research, an extensive qualitative study based on more than 50 elite semi-structured interviews, elicits the firms' and other actors' perceptions, understandings and impressions of each other and the political processes at work. Some important similarities and differences between the UK and French firms emerge from the data. Most significantly, some narrowing in the dissimilarities is apparent, which may, in part, be attributed to the process of Europeanization itself.

Transition in Europe is one of the most important transformations in modern history. This research investigates the impact of economic and political transition on the liner sector of post-Soviet Europe. Former socialist shipping corporations have begun to offer services under market conditions and left behind the rigid leeway of central planning (Cottam and Roe 2007). Extensive adjustments in ownership, organisation, fleets and markets have transpired. Successful transformation of the maritime industries has a major influence upon the speed and route of economic development in transition countries (Von Brabant 2011). Despite this, liner shipping has received very little attention from academia. There have been no profound investigations, nor a recognised transition model concerning the Eastern European liner sector. However, developments within this field and its importance for liner shipping internationally make transition shipping a topic worthy of rigorous analysis. A review of Eastern European liner shipping during the period of transition was undertaken in order to assess the level of adaptation to the demands of the free market placed upon the Eastern European liner shipping corporations by the post-1989 transformations. Eastern European maritime literature supported the application of the concept from a transition context and assisted in the development of a conceptual model. The role of the model is to provide a visual representation of the most important elements of restructuring processes used in the facilitation of liner shipping in the European free market. Analysis of the research synthesis resulted in the identification of key dimensions crucial to successful transition. A three-tiered Delphi survey classified major areas of change and the relationship of changes to the liner industries. From a systemic point of view, research findings indicate the existence of a number of transitional processes utilised in the restructuring of liner shipping fleets. These are: liberalisation, deregulation, commercialisation, privatisation and European Union accession. Such processes are intricately linked and deeply dependent upon evolutionary timing and sequencing. A discussion of the results provides serious implications for world practitioners. Based on the findings of this study, European Union competitors may take advantage of the fact that transitional liner shipping has largely lost touch with market decisive players, although it has undergone broad privatisation and restructuring. Conversely, Eastern European liner corporations can analyse the effect of transition upon shipping, and draw comparisons between the varying techniques applied and the results achieved by national fleets in order to identify the most advantageous commercialisation strategies. Government initiative will now be required to overcome the conflict between the interest of the liner industry and that of the national citizen, such that there will be public acceptance of free competition, privatisation and foreign investment.

The Asian financial crisis in 1997 98 left a severe impact on Malaysia s economy and banking system. This has forced the Malaysian government to undertake financial restructuring initiatives to restore market and public confidence, and to meet the ongoing challenges associated with market structure, financial innovation and globalisation. Therefore, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) introduced a ten-year Financial Sector Master Plan (FSMP) to strengthen domestic banks and the regulatory structure, and to promote the banks efficiency by stimulating a competitive banking industry through financial liberalisation. The crisis for banks in Malaysia and the region has been extensively studied in the past (Sufian, 2010). However, empirical studies of the post-crisis period, and the implementation of the FSMP, remain limited. Hence, a data set of all banks in Malaysia, which covers the period 2000 2011, was employed to examine the effect of the FSMP s initiatives on Malaysian banks efficiency between 2000 and 2011. To measure this efficiency, this study employs both parametric and nonparametric models: namely, stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA). Economic functions such as, cost-, standard profit- and alternative profit-efficiency were used in a 1-stage SFA model, which includes control variables (e.g. capital adequacy, asset quality and liquidity) and environmental variables (e.g. ownership, size, specialisation, deregulation periods and market structure) in the model specifications. In addition, this study employs SFA as the main measurement method, while the DEA model was used to cross-check consistency (Resti, 1997; Bauer et al., 1998). Both SFA and DEA demonstrated that, in most cases, the consistency was moderate. The level of cost efficiency of Malaysian banks worsened over the years 2000 2011, with average cost efficiency during this period was at 76.5%. Despite the various liberalisation measures introduced to the banking industry particularly during the three phases of the FSMP; 2000 2003; 2004 2007; 2008 2011 cost efficiency trended downward, due to the effects of consolidation by domestic banks, deregulation of interest rates, the introduction of foreign Islamic banks, and the global credit crisis. Banks in Malaysia were forced to adjust their inputs and outputs to the rapid changes in the banking industry, which might have made a negative impact on cost efficiency. On the other hand, the banks demonstrated a steadily increasing profit efficiency trend, which fluctuated with the introduction of interest rate liberalisation (early second phase of the FSMP (i.e. 2004)) and during the global credit crisis (early third phase of the FSMP (i.e. 2008)). The average profit efficiency for 2000 2011 was 93.3%. The profit efficiency exhibited an increasing trend in the first (2000-2003) and second (2004-2007) phases of the FSMP, suggesting that the effect of consolidation by domestic banks had resulted in higher market concentration and greater market power among the remaining banks. However, the profit efficiency average scores fell in 2004, 2008 and 2011. This is attributed to the deregulation of interest rates, the deleveraging of the inflow of foreign funds, and the rapid increase in policy interest rates. At a more granular level, domestic banks were found to be more cost efficient, but marginally less profit efficient, when compared to foreign banks. In terms of bank specialisation, conventional banks were more cost- and profit-efficient than Islamic banks. With regard to economies of scale, the majority of Malaysian banks revealed scale economies, illustrated by a U-shape, with medium-sized banks being more scale efficient than small and large banks. These results suggest that, to enhance Malaysian banks efficiency, the government must maintain competitive pressure on the large domestic banks that were consolidated during the first phase of the FSMP (2000-2003). Policymakers may want to further open up banking markets, improve risk management and governance, encourage financial innovation, and support expansion of smaller banks. The implementation of deregulation initiatives during periods of uncertainty (e.g. the global credit crisis) have also resulted in decreasing trend of cost and profit efficiency. Hence, monitoring initiatives, using tools such as frontier measurement is important for regulator s macro- and micro-prudential surveillance.