This paper presents an investigation into the relationship between the announcement of acquisitions, the existence of positive abnormal return for shares of these firms and market efficiency in Germany, France and Great Britain. The sample of transactions ranged from January 2010 to December 2015. This thesis has used the event study methodology where the Cumulative Average Abnormal Returns (CAAR) of the target and bidder firm's stock prices in different event windows have been analysed. Across all the markets, target firm's stock price yields positive CAAR that is significantly different from zero on the day of the announcement. Unlike the target firms, bidder firms do not show statistically significant CAAR for all analysed markets. The second goal was to analyse market efficiency using CAAR data from the event study. It was concluded that the analysed markets behave in a semi-strong form of market efficiency with potential cases of insider trading identified.

The thesis investigates the impact of a very specific state-led legislative institution of colonial lineage – the Agricultural Produce Markets Commission (APMC) Act & Rules – on uneven agricultural growth productivity and poverty outcomes across select fourteen Indian states over the post-independence period. It also studies political economy determinants of the APMC Act. This research offers the first most comprehensive empirical characterisation of agricultural marketing laws for the agriculture produce sector of the Indian economy. The thesis presents three substantive research outcomes. The first empirical chapter provides the construction of a composite multidimensional de jure time-varying index of the APMC Act & Rules for each state. The quantitative measure reveals the extent of variation in the form & trends of statutory clauses in the selected 14 Indian states from 1970-2008. Based on empirical analysis of nearly forty years of the regulatory framework of agricultural markets, the second empirical chapter demonstrates that variation in institutional market arrangements explain the marked differences in the use of modern farm inputs and growth patterns in agricultural productivity as well as rural poverty outcomes in the states of India. The results from 14 states show that states with improved regulatory arrangements in the agricultural markets have higher agricultural investment, productivity and fall in poverty. A difference of each one unit improvement in market regulations in a state is found to be associated with about 0.24 units average increase in the mean of agricultural yield productivity and an about 6.2 units average direct reduction in the mean of poverty incidence. Finally, the third chapter demonstrates presence of political economy activity in shaping of the differing APMC Act & Rules in Indian states. It suggests that ignoring potential influence of political economy factors in determining APMC Act can undermine the prospects of achieving desired policy objectives and may lead to miscalculated policy judgments. What the evidence in this thesis illustrates is that regulations matter in channelizing markets for efficiency effect on agricultural productivity and poverty reduction. It reveals that the APMC measure needs to be understood as a part of a wider political economy regulatory system and it cannot be viewed as a neutral tool which can be applied to produce predictable and consistent economic results. Agriculture growth and poverty reduction efforts would get a serious setback in states where effective institutional regulatory support was not provided as this assures vibrant market and remunerative price to farmers. The thesis’s fundamental finding is that efficient regulations encourage agricultural development which implies that any solution that looks to optimise the mechanisms around agricultural markets demands efficient and progressive evolution of the existing regulatory framework of the APMC Act. This challenges recent calls for complete dismantling of regulated markets, expressed by critics who view the current APMC Act as one of the main bottlenecks to managing food inflation and the national food security challenges in India. Given the heterogeneity of agrarian contexts, food systems and marketing dynamics being faced by the Indian farming community, well-regulated agricultural markets cannot be undermined for effective functioning of the domestic agricultural trade and development of farming community.

Diploma thesis on the topic of marketing research farmers markets aims to identify the most important motives that influence buying behavior of consumers who visit farmers markets, as well as those who do not seek out farmers markets on the contrary. The first part is to get familiar with issues from a marketing point of view. Next, I considered it important to clarify to what are principles and rules of farmers' markets and how do they work in general. The practical part of my thesis includes its own investigation dealing with the degree of popularity of farmers' markets for consumers in the Czech Republic. The conclusion gives marketing recommendations based on the analysis of the results of my research and the external observation. The results of my research can serve both for laymen who want to learn more about this topic from a marketing point of view, as well as for all stakeholders in this field.

The dissertation thesis deals with the problem of signaling behaviour at the labour market. It wants to shed more light on the difference between signaling and the traditionally accepted human capital theory, in order to find common points and distinctions. Both are later used in the model-parts of the thesis where I try to model demad for education and labour demand under both approaches. Both models are theorethical-based and explatin different possibilities how both these variables are formed in the labour market.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the increased correlation within four major asset groups (Government Bonds, Equity Indices, Commodities and Currencies) from the beginning of Great Recession till July 2014. The effect of increased correlation is called Risk-On Risk-Off and is connected to problems, where investors struggle to create risk-oriented portfolios and instead minimalize loss. The methods analysing the correlations are Absolute Average Value Index (AAVI) and Heat-map analysis. The AAVI is transforming correlation matrix into a single number and investigating the intensity of correlations. The Heat-map is studying the relationship between any two assets. The results from this study were that the RORO effect was present during Great Recession with intensity never seen before and that in June 2014 the values are close to pre-recession levels.

The objective of this thesis is to show different types of investment opportunities that a small investor has on a standard banking market. Subsequently they are analyzed from both theoretical and practical aspects. The reader will be able to see pros and cons of e.g. traditional saving products, mutual funds and many others. Services will be among other assessed from an international perspective. The main intention of this analysis is to find such financial products, to which a small investor has access and that can be recommended as a meaningful investment.

In the first essay, in contrast to some earlier studies, I document statistically significant within-country style effects in several emerging Asian equity market portfolios. Small capitalization and value stocks tend to outperform their style counterparts. However, there are considerable periods of time when large capitalization and growth stocks outperform. Overall, single style strategies are risky when applied to each individual market. In the second essay, I report that average return correlations among the zero-cost style portfolios are low - emphasizing the value of an intra-regional diversification strategy. These correlations exhibit significant variation over time. Measures of integration for the style portfolios are also low on average but tend to vary over time. Style returns in the original ASEAN-5 markets exhibit much higher correlations following the Asian financial crisis, and, these correlations remain elevated for several years. These results suggest that while diversification is helpful on average, there are some periods of time when a regional style rotation strategy is warranted and other times when country-specific rotation strategies are reasonable. In the third essay, I conduct bootstrap experiments on significant winner and loser continuations for each style and the style triplets in Asian emerging equity markets. I provide only modest evidence of style continuation in Asian emerging markets. I also test for style-level momentum in emerging Asia and condition style momentum returns on January, market state, monetary policy and cross-sectional dispersion. I find significant conditional style-level momentum in some Asian emerging markets but not others. I attribute the weaker style momentum results in emerging Asia to a lack of country-level style-specific derivatives in these markets.

Regional integration, defined as a process in which countries enter into agreements to enhance regional trade, economic and political cooperation, remains an integral part of Africa’s development strategy as evidenced by the proliferation of regional integration agreements on the continent. The implications of these regional agreements on the strategy and operations of multinational corporations on the continent is a question that has received little attention, and as a result, largely remains unanswered. The East African Community, the regional intergovernmental organisation between the Republics of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, may lay claim to the position of being the most advanced regional block in Africa with respect to progress made at implementing integration objectives. As such, the impact that deepening integration may have had on multinationals operating in the East African Community evokes much interest and attention. This research therefore interrogates the implications of deepening regional integration on business strategy in the East African Community. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This paper investigates how individuals in emerging markets, specifically South Africa, approach their savings decision. The researcher attempts to identify those attributes most desirable to emerging market consumers, in so far as the allocation of their disposable income to saving is concerned. In the wake of one of the biggest financial crises to hit the modern world, there is going to be increased scrutiny into how financial institutions and countries capitalise their balance sheets. The manner in which financial advice is given to individuals will face similar scrutiny as such the subject matter requires even greater understanding. Human beings in some parts of the world are living increasingly longer. Longevity risk is the risk that people may live for longer than the average expected. This poses risks of uncertainty of the quantum of financial assets to build up in preparation for retirement. These are pertinent reasons for the need for a study of this nature. The research found that stereotypical understandings of the profile of a typical emerging market individual are being challenged. As such organisations looking to take advantage of business opportunities present in these markets need to be cognisant of this change in shaping their business strategies. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Cost-focused innovation is perceived as the primary approach that Western companies should adopt when entering emerging markets, as their standard approaches are usually unsuitable for these environments. Although many of the principles of cost-focused innovation are relevant to these markets, companies should be weary of blindly copying previous entrants with regard to how they develop products for these markets. Each industry and product set will need to deal with a different set of factors, especially in developing environments that are constantly evolving. The aim of this research study is to gage the prevalence of a cost-focused innovation approach in developing products for emerging markets. A quantitative approach was used in order to determine if there is statistical evidence that confirms that a cost-focused innovation methodology is prevalent in designing products for low income markets. The mobile phone industry was selected for investigation as handset manufacturers have successfully created mobile phones for both developed and developing markets. The major findings were that cost-focused innovation is not significantly prevalent in developing mobile phones for low income markets. Furthermore, there is evidence that suggests that a combination of innovation approaches may be used to counter the traditional trade-offs between price and functionality in order to create low cost, high value products for both developing and developed markets. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted