The central aim of this thesis is to investigate how and why labour markets are formed in specific ways under contemporary global capitalism. This thesis achieves this through a sociological analysis and explanatory account of the contemporary transformation of merchant navy seafaring labour markets for Filipino, South African and British seafarers. The study is centrally concerned with four questions relating to the restructuring of these labour markets. These questions are: 1. How has the labour market for seafarers been reshaped? 2. How has the restructuring of shipping capital facilitated this process process? 3. What has the role of labour been in this restructuring process? 4. What other labour market institutions contribute to this restructuring? Answering these four questions allows me to achieve the central aim of my thesis which is to investigate how and why labour markets are formed in specific ways under contemporary global capitalism. In answering these questions this thesis makes three theoretical interventions in industrial sociology. Firstly, this work offers a substantially different account of labour markets that advances a more fully social explanation of labour market formation that does not consider the social as a 'factor' or an 'add on' as does classical and neo classical economics (and some strands of economic sociology) but a significant shaper of global labour markets. Secondly, it fills a gap in theorising the agency of organised labour under global capitalism. The thesis demonstrated how the agency of organised labour and the importance of locality or place should also be accorded primacy in arguing how labour markets are produced. Thirdly in making my own assertions about the creation and decimation of working classes under capitalism, I draw on three detailed case studies of seafaring trade unions, capitalist and state strategies in the shaping and transformation of contemporary labour markets for seafarers and therefore demonstrate the fallibility of the 'race to the bottom' thesis using contemporary research and data. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

Written as three publishable papers, this dissertation examines the sources of several forms of social capital in Singapore, and the effects of social capital on occupational success. Using representative survey data from Singapore, these papers make several important theoretical contributions: The first paper examines how and why categorical forms of stratification such as gender and ethnicity tend to produce distinctive forms of network inequalities: for example, whereas Chinese (relative to Malays and Indians) tend to have greater access to well-educated, wealthy, Chinese and weak tie social capital (but not non-kin), men (relative to women) tend to have greater access to men, non-kin and weak ties (but not well-educated, wealthy and Chinese). The key to understanding such distinctive patterns of network inequalities (by gender and ethnicity) is to understand the distinctive ways in which gender and ethnic groups are distributed in routine organizations such as schools, paid work and voluntary associations. The second paper examines the significance of personal contacts in job searches, in the context of Singapore’s meritocratic system. I show that in certain sectors such as the state bureaucracy, social networking brings no distinct advantages as appointments are made exclusively on the basis of the credentials of the candidates. Thus, personal contacts are not always useful, especially in labour markets that rely heavily on the signalling role of academic credentials to match people to jobs. In contrast, personal contacts are more useful among less qualified job searches in the private sector. The third paper shows that while job contacts (i.e. ‘mobilized’ social capital) may not always pay off in meritocratic labour markets, ‘accessed’ social capital remains extremely important. The leveraging power of social capital in meritocratic markets is not the active mobilization of job contacts per se, but more subtly, the result of embedded social resources such as knowing many university graduates and wealthy people. Together, these papers illustrate how socio-structural factors such as meritocracy, gender and racialization form important predictors of the distribution, role and value of social capital in everyday life and labour markets.

Written as three publishable papers, this dissertation examines the sources of several forms of social capital in Singapore, and the effects of social capital on occupational success. Using representative survey data from Singapore, these papers make several important theoretical contributions: The first paper examines how and why categorical forms of stratification such as gender and ethnicity tend to produce distinctive forms of network inequalities: for example, whereas Chinese (relative to Malays and Indians) tend to have greater access to well-educated, wealthy, Chinese and weak tie social capital (but not non-kin), men (relative to women) tend to have greater access to men, non-kin and weak ties (but not well-educated, wealthy and Chinese). The key to understanding such distinctive patterns of network inequalities (by gender and ethnicity) is to understand the distinctive ways in which gender and ethnic groups are distributed in routine organizations such as schools, paid work and voluntary associations. The second paper examines the significance of personal contacts in job searches, in the context of Singapore’s meritocratic system. I show that in certain sectors such as the state bureaucracy, social networking brings no distinct advantages as appointments are made exclusively on the basis of the credentials of the candidates. Thus, personal contacts are not always useful, especially in labour markets that rely heavily on the signalling role of academic credentials to match people to jobs. In contrast, personal contacts are more useful among less qualified job searches in the private sector. The third paper shows that while job contacts (i.e. ‘mobilized’ social capital) may not always pay off in meritocratic labour markets, ‘accessed’ social capital remains extremely important. The leveraging power of social capital in meritocratic markets is not the active mobilization of job contacts per se, but more subtly, the result of embedded social resources such as knowing many university graduates and wealthy people. Together, these papers illustrate how socio-structural factors such as meritocracy, gender and racialization form important predictors of the distribution, role and value of social capital in everyday life and labour markets.

The main focus of this study is to examine the development of the theory of the institution of ḥisbah in medieval Islam. In particular, the study will provide an analysis and paraphrase of the work of Yaḥyā ibn ʻUmar (d. 289/901) which is considered the earliest source on the subject. The study is divided into seven chapters, an Introduction and a Conclusion. The Introduction explains the aims of this study and is followed by the discussions on the origin of the role of market supervision and the definition of ḥisbah. Next, works of medieval Muslim scholars and studies made by the contemporary scholars are reviewed. Chapter One discusses the life and career of Yaḥyā ibn ʻUmar, followed by an analysis of the two texts of his work; Kitāb Aḥkām al-Sūq and Kitāb al-Aḥkām fī Jamiʻ Aḥwāl al-Sūq. In Chapter Two, a paraphrase of these two texts is made. Chapter Three deals with the elements of ḥisbah, covering the discussions on the person carrying out the duty of ḥisbah (i.e. the muḥtasib), the person to be supervised, subject of ḥisbah's supervision and stages of ḥisbah's penalties. The remaining four chapters examine the duties of the muḥtasib. The duty of the muḥtasib to supervise the market is discussed in Chapter Four and Chapter Five examines his duty to supervise moral and religious behaviour. The discussions in Chapter Six is concerned with the supervision of medical professions while Chapter Seven deals with the administration of the city. This is followed by a Conclusion which summarizes the discussions previously made and presents the findings of this study.

This paper solves a long-standing open problem in mathematical finance: to find a solution to the problem of maximizing utility from terminal wealth of an agent with a random endowment process, in the general, semimartingale model for incomplete markets, and to characterize it via the associated dual problem. We show that this is indeed possible if the dual problem and its domain are carefully defined. More precisely, we show that the optimal terminal wealth is equal to the inverse of marginal utility evaluated at the solution to the dual problem, which is in the form of the regular part of an element of(L∞)* (the dual space of L∞). (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"

We show that, for a utility function U: R to R having reasonable asymptotic elasticity, the optimal investment process H. S is a super-martingale under each equivalent martingale measure Q, such that E[V(dQ/dP)] < "unendlich", where V is conjugate to U. Similar results for the special case of the exponential utility were recently obtained by Delbaen, Grandits, Rheinländer, Samperi, Schweizer, Stricker as well as Kabanov, Stricker. This result gives rise to a rather delicate analysis of the "good definition" of "allowed" trading strategies H for the financial market S. One offspring of these considerations leads to the subsequent - at first glance paradoxical - example. There is a financial market consisting of a deterministic bond and two risky financial assets (S_t^1, S_t^2)_0<=t<=T such that, for an agent whose preferences are modeled by expected exponential utility at time T, it is optimal to constantly hold one unit of asset S^1. However, if we pass to the market consisting only of the bond and the first risky asset S^1, and leaving the information structure unchanged, this trading strategy is not optimal any more: in this smaller market it is optimal to invest the initial endowment into the bond. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers SFB "Adaptive Information Systems and Modelling in Economics and Management Science"

New markets for the conservation of so-called ecosystem services, like the ability of a wetland to mitigate floods, are emerging worldwide. According to environmental economists, these markets require some metric - ecological or otherwise - that names the relevant characteristics of the service to be traded as a commodity. But while this is often assumed to be a simple task of science, I argue that the environmental regulators, eco-entrepreneurs, and conservationists who actually design and implement metrics are not so easily brought into agreement. In “rolling-out” revamped metrics and protocols, regulators and their conservationist allies in one market in Oregon haven’t established the conditions for market success so much as they have constrained entrepreneurs. The solutions to ecosystem destruction 20 years ago - privatization, commodification, and commercialization - have become the obstacles which limit the market’s future viability. The moments when capitalists find themselves saying “let’s sell nature to save it” - or when states say it for them - can spell trouble for capitalists at the same time that they seem like their escape hatch. Still, the short-term and long-term effects of market design may differ; barriers to the market now may prove to be its success later.

Research suggests that the connection between poor diet and obesity among rural residents may be partially explained by limited access to healthy foods including fruits and vegetables (F&V). Based on federal suggestions to improve access, the purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between food shopping habits food venues and dietary intake of residents in rural counties of Kentucky. In May, 2013, a telephone survey was conducted using random-digit dial methods among n=149 participants in all three counties. Results showed that grocery shopping at supermarkets had a moderate positive correlation with F&V intake (r=.357, .348). These findings suggest participants who shop at supermarkets also consume F&V. Our study’s findings did not give a strong correlation between F&V consumption and farmers’ market use, which could be due to the locations of these markets, price of produce, or other environmental barriers that were not looked at in this study. Although the results from our study do not show a correlation, the majority of previous research supports the need to improve farmers’ market locations to help increase accessibility for groups with low F&V consumption and emphasize the importance of addressing economic barriers to food access.

In this paper, we model price dispersion effects in over-the-counter (OTC) markets to show that, in the presence of inventory risk for dealers and search costs for investors, traded prices may deviate from the expected market valuation of an asset. We interpret this devia- tion as a liquidity effect and develop a new liquidity measure quantifying the price dispersion in the context of the US corporate bond market. This market offers a unique opportunity tofstudy liquidity effects since, from October 2004 onwards, all OTC transactions in this marketfhave to be reported to a common database known as the Trade Reporting and CompliancefEngine (TRACE). Furthermore, market-wide average price quotes are available from MarkitGroup Limited, a financial information provider. Thus, it is possible, for the first time, to directly observe deviations between transaction prices and the expected market valuation of securities. We quantify and analyze our new liquidity measure for this market and find significant price dispersion effects that cannot be simply captured by bid-ask spreads. Wefshow that our new measure is indeed related to liquidity by regressing it on commonly-usedfliquidity proxies and find a strong relation between our proposed liquidity measure and bond characteristics, as well as trading activity variables. Furthermore, we evaluate the reliability of end-of-day marks that traders use to value their positions. Our evidence suggests that the price deviations from expected market valuations are significantly larger and more volatile than previously assumed. Overall, the results presented here improve our understanding of the drivers of liquidity and are important for many applications in OTC markets, in general. (authors' abstract)

Research Question: Which factors impact the purchase decision of consumers within emerging markets when shopping online? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between e-commerce factors and the consumer purchase decision within e-commerce on emerging markets to unravel how certain factors impact the consumer purchase decision. The aim is to provide knowledge regarding consumer purchase decision making for retailers entering an emerging e-commerce market, this by carrying out a survey to consumers on a representative emerging market. Hypotheses: H1: E-logistics has a positive impact on the e-consumer purchase decision. H2: E-marketing activities have a positive impact on the e-consumer purchase decision. H3: Online integrity has a positive impact on the e-consumer purchase decision. H4: E-vendor contact alternatives have a positive impact on the e-consumer purchase decision. H5: Web site design has a positive impact on the e-consumer purchase decision. Method: This study has a deductive research approach combined with a quantitative research method. The primary data consists of data collected through carrying out a survey in Warsaw, Poland. The data was later on analyzed using the statistics software programme SPSS. Conclusion: In order for e-vendors to gain market shares and utilize the market capacity of the hyper-competitive emerging markets the factors web site design, e- marketing and e-vendor contact alternatives are essential to address due to their positive impact on the consumers purchase decision.