The thesis begins with a discussion of the concept of sustainability, green buildings and the traditional valuation approach. Then valuable information are extracted from the reports of IMMOVALUE project, which is aiming to improve the market impact of energy certification by introducing energy efficiency and life cycle cost into property valuation practice. A survey collecting Swedish valuers‟ opinion towards the sustainability issue is implemented and some results from early surveys are also employed for exploring this research area.Energy efficiency/Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) is a breakpoint for the integration of green issues into property valuation practice. This is the most feasible way to quantify the effects of green features into property. Some modified methodologies based on the three traditional valuation approaches are proposed and the income related approach is the most suitable one here. For a good market acceptance of green buildings, the valuation of green issues must be taken.At the very early stage of the process of integrating green features into property valuation, this thesis explores the result from IMMOVALUE project and other researches. A close review of the process has been made and this may give valuers guidance of how to take green features into account not only in a qualitative, but also in a quantitative way.

QC 20100707

I samband med den pågående urbaniseringen är det viktigt att vi tar hand om och bevarar de grönområden som finns i våra städer. Genom denna studie undersöks boende i Luleå kommuns betalningsvilja för förändringar i form av en investering på Gültzauudden. Bakomliggande faktorer till individens betalningsvilja undersöks, där individens hälsa för första gången inkluderas. En enkät, som inspirerats av metoden contingent valuation, har skickats ut via Facebook och till två företag i Luleå. Studien undersöker endast vuxna i Luleå kommuns betalningsvilja för ett specifikt grönområde. Med hjälp av 218 observationer fastställdes den individuella genomsnittliga betalningsviljan till 134 SEK. Det totala ekonomiska värdet av förbättringar på Gültzauudden i form av en investering uppgår till cirka åtta miljoner kronor. Faktorer som påverkar individens betalningsvilja är om individen besöker området för en kulturaktivitet, kön och hälsotillstånd. Investeringar som kan satsas på är fler grillplatser, anordning av kulturevenemang och utomhusgym.

The rise and growth of online social networks have spurred tremendous changes in our understanding of human behavior. Social scientists and companies have devised new tools to analyze the vast amounts of data obtained from these networks. Such advances have had two major consequences. First, it has allowed firms to significantly improve their segmentation and targeting strategies. Second, it also modified how problems are conceptualized. For example, books, academic papers, or webpages are now being studied under methods developed for social network analysis. This dissertation contributes to both applications. Essays 1 and 2 describe efficient targeting strategies in situations where access to information or computing power is costly. Although existing “seeding” methods have been quite successful in social networks, they often do not account for firms' limited computing power or assume that firms are omniscient. Essay 3 focuses on the art industry by conceptualizing paintings as items connected to each other in a network through their visual similarities. Indeed, we still do not perfectly understand what makes art financially valuable and even major auction houses are at awe when paintings are sold at prices multiple times higher than what they expected. In particular, we aim to quantify how an art piece's visual features and historical importance may impact prices and assess how auction houses and their marketing efforts may modify how art is evaluated and valued. This dissertation has three essays. In the first essay, we analyze how the friendship paradox, which states that your friends have more friends than you, may be generalized to situations where relationships are asymmetric. Indeed, the result assumes symmetric relations: if two people are friends, then each is the other's friend. For social networks that satisfy this assumption (e.g., Facebook), the friendship paradox implies that firms can potentially achieve faster and more widespread diffusion of information by seeding it with the friends of a group of people than with people in the group itself. We generalize the result to allow one-sided (leader/follower) relations and examine the implications for seeding in social networks where messages can be sent only by a leader to his/her followers. We obtain necessary and sufficient conditions under which the highest number of followers is obtained by seeding with (1) leaders, (2) followers, and (3) individuals chosen by ignoring the distinction between leaders and followers. We examine the seeding implications of the results for a subset of Twitter users. The second essay furthers our understanding of the friendship paradox and relates it to beta centrality and eigenvector centrality. We generalize the results to asymmetric relations, define two beta centrality measures and relate them to the singular vectors of the associated directed graph. Our first generalization shows that the expected number of k removed friends is no smaller than the expected number of k-1 removed friends when k is an even number. Such a relation does not necessarily exist when k is an odd number. As k increases to infinity, the limiting value of the expected number of k removed friends converges to the largest eigenvalue of the associated undirected graph. We interpret beta centrality to be a weighted sum of an infinite series of the numbers of k removed friends. It approaches eigenvector centrality when the weighting parameter becomes arbitrarily close to the inverse of the limiting value of the expected number of k removed friends. We further generalize these results to asymmetric relations (say, between followers and leaders) that can be represented by directed graphs. We show that the last person in a randomly selected alternating sequence of 2k+1 leaders and followers (followers and leaders) has no fewer followers (leaders) than the last person in a randomly selected alternating sequence of 2k followers and leaders (leaders and followers). As k increases to infinity, the expected number of leaders of the last person in a randomly selected sequence of 2k alternating leaders and followers converges to a value proportional to the largest singular value of the associated directed graph. Similarly, the expected number of followers of the last person in a randomly selected sequence of 2k alternating followers and leaders converges to a (different) value proportional to the largest singular value of the associated directed graph. We show that there is a reciprocal relation between the limiting expected values of leaders and followers. We generalize beta centrality to asymmetric relations and relate the limiting values of beta centrality scores for followers and leaders to the singular vectors of the associated directed graph. The third essay focuses on the art market. Auction houses hold auctions regularly throughout the year. However, once or twice a year, art investors and wealthy consumers attend highly selective marquee events: day and evening sales. Those carefully designed and highly marketed events often generate a lot of excitement for connoisseurs as most paintings get sold for tremendous amounts of money. But what makes those paintings special? We investigate how art is evaluated across those three types of auctions. Specifically, we build a deep learning model to summarize the paintings into a low dimensional representation space where each factor encodes a specific feature of the paintings’ aesthetics and further utilize those components to create “network” variables that will determine how influential and creative a painting is. We use those predictors in hedonic regression models to study how art returns differs across the three types of sales and subsequently analyze whether the paintings are evaluated differently. In particular, we find that paintings sold in evening sales generated an annualized return of 14.33% in the period 1999-2018 - more than three times the returns of paintings sold in regular or day auctions. Finally, we adopt a propensity score matching approach to create a homogeneous population of paintings - based on their likelihood to be auctioned in an evening sale - to assess the causal impact of being featured in an evening sale and find that such highlight increases a painting's price by almost $6 million.

The business benefits of IT projects are becoming the main determining factor in selecting projects at the ex-ante justification stage. The core stakeholders, i.e. the business management and IT professionals are charged with the task of evaluating the benefits of IT investment. Despite high adoption rates of formal IT investment appraisal methods, there is still on-going evidence that show organisations not being able to appropriately evaluate IT benefits. This study investigates the process of IT project evaluation at the ex-ante justification stage to understand factors that contribute to ineffective practical application of evaluation and based on the findings, to explore how these factors can be redeemed to improve the benefit evaluation process. A case study research was conducted to explore how benefits can be evaluated appropriately within its context in a tertiary educational institution. The case study research approach enabled the researcher to gain a complete and in-depth understanding of the process and activities involved to identify and measure benefits at the justification stage. Business middle managers that are involved and responsible for IT project justification were approached from various business units as case study participants. Interview questions addressed various aspects of the benefits evaluation process in reference to participants’ experience and past IT project justifications. Content analysis was used to identify frequencies and intensities with which themes and concepts appear in interviewee responses. In addition, a cause and effect relationship tool was used to summarize the research findings for better data analysis and interpretation. The findings indicate factors that contributed to ineffective benefit evaluation in the organization. Close collaboration and partnership between business management and IT professionals is shown to be a crucial component of the justification process. The suggested role of IT management exceeds beyond the task of technical advisor and involves the task of being a coach, informer, educator, assessor, transparency and communication agent. The results also show how best the measurement process can be performed at this stage. This study confirms that business management’s clear understanding of IT benefit concepts is necessary in the evaluation process. Based on the findings, an IT benefit evaluation method is developed as a modification of the current justification process in the organisation. The results presented in this study lay plausible insights for additional approaches to IT benefit evaluation research. It compels researchers to consider new methodologies in the quest for improving benefit evaluation. / Dissertation (MIT)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Informatics / unrestricted

Early intervention programs for handicapped preschool children may have long-term implications for the children and their families. Economic eva luations of these programs have been conducted to measure costs and bene fit s, but parental wi l lingness-to-pay has been overlooked in these analyses. Parental willingness-to-pay, as a measure of consumer surplus, could complete the measure of benefits and provide both policymakers and practitioners with useful information for decisionmaking. In this study, the impli cations of eliciting willingness-to-pay responses for an early intervention program for handicapped preschoolers are discussed. A survey technique, known as the contingent valuation method (CVM) , is applied to program to empirically estimate wil lin gness-to-pay for the total program and for particular components of the program. Also investigated are the implications of using a rationality test in the survey to determine if consumer responses are in accordance with assumptions for rational consumer behavior. Results indicate relatively high willingness-to-pay for the program as whole, but low value is associated with program components. This implies that parents may value these programs more for the respite rather than specialized services offered. Results of the rationality test support the hypothesis that such a measure is necessary in survey designs of this nature.

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MASTER OF MANAGEMENT IN FINANCE & INVESTMENT (MMFI) 2015 RESEARCH REPORT / This paper assesses shareholder wealth creation in target and acquiring companies as a result of an acquisition, in particular, a hostile takeover. The paper reviews existing mergers and acquisitions literature and also considers a case study in order to review some practical results. The case study of the Bidvest Group hostile takeover of Adcock Ingram Pharmaceuticals that took place in January 2014 in South Africa is reviewed. A detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis is conducted to ascertain and quantify shareholder wealth creation after the takeover. The analysis conducted included a financial assessment using relevant financial indicators, an analysis of existing literature and interviews with key board directors of Adcock Ingram Pharmaceuticals. To ascertain whether the results of the target company, Adcock Ingram Pharmaceuticals, are either in line, below or above industry performance after the takeover, Adcock Ingram Pharmaceuticals’ results are benchmarked against Aspen Pharmacare Holding’s results. Majority of the findings literature reviewed are that target company shareholder gains exceed acquiring company shareholder gains post an acquisition. The findings of this research are that target company (Adcock Ingram Pharmaceuticals) shareholders are worse off whilst acquiring company (Bidvest Group) shareholders continue to increase their wealth after the takeover. Possible reasons for these results, which contradict majority of the existing literature on wealth gains post a merger or acquisition, are given.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering specialising in Mineral Economics, Johannesburg 2018 / South Africa‘s economic growth has been declining since 2009. Mining contributes to economic growth in various ways, including foreign earnings and taxes. It contributes to the economy through direct, indirect and quasi taxes. Quasi taxes are near taxes that are imposed on mining projects in the national interests of protecting the environment and the social, cultural and economic needs of local communities. They have implications on tax design, they are often significant and are regulated by various Acts. They include contribution to local communities, foreign exchange control, environmental taxes, performance bonds and government equity in mining projects. Because of their implication on tax design and related aspects, the research was conducted to assess the extent which they contribute to the economic growth of South Africa, to assess how the country can enhance the effectiveness of quasi taxes on economic growth, to assess whether the country has a good mining tax regime, to assess their impact on mining investments decisions and planning. The research involved a literature survey for qualitative and quantitative data from various sources. These were various books, journals and others publications. It used an internet-based method of data collection and hard copies from various institutions, including libraries. Annual reports of three mining companies that are mining in South Africa and are listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, were randomly sampled and assessed, to gain an understanding of the manner in which these taxes contribute to economic growth. The work also used a Discounted Cash Flow model to assess the impacts of quasi taxes on mine planning and mine investments. It further assessed the extent to which quasi taxes can be applied to the determinants of economic growth. The findings are that quasi taxes contributed 0,77 percent (%) in terms of mining exports earnings per unit of GDP created, between the years 2007 to 2016 and R2 billion to community development in the year 2015. It was found that transparency and lack of clarity are some of the impediments to the contribution of quasi taxes to economic growth. A good mining tax regime is required in order to reap maximum benefit from these taxes. The country must also use Community Engagement Plans to manage expectations, to explain the level of benefit from mining, for clarity and transparency between interested and affected parties. Quasi taxes affect mine planning and investment decisions. Quasi taxes must also be used for clustered and sustainable projects in the form of the Public Private Partnership approach, in line with the determinants of economic growth. / XL2019

A vast amount of literature on hedonic price modelling has been formulated on overseas property markets. Very little currently exists in South Africa and this poses a risk for sellers and estate agents of a residential property when listing it on the open market, as this could result in an extended list period, reducing the original asking price. This paper seeks to examine Gauteng’s West Rand residential property market and formulate a multi-variate regression model to best predict property prices, determined by a property’s structural characteristic. The research tracks residential sales from 1996 to 2009, a thirteen-year sample period from which a composite property index, to account for inflation and real house price growth, has been formalised. Correlation and regression analysis was used to interpret the data at the relevant significance level. In order to account for locational attributes present in property values, the data set was divided into locational quadrants and run as dummy variables. A further regression was run on a screened data set to create an ordinary least squares equation that could be used to show the relationship between property values and structural characteristics. The results indicated a good fit with an R2 of 69.5%. This regression was then applied practically to predict property prices for houses that have transacted in the West Rand property market, and plotted along a value/price graph using the 45-degree true value frontier line. The relevant results were then interpreted, and recommendations given.