It has been over sixty (60) years since decolonization in Africa. In years gone by, a pattern has emerged of former French colonies being marginally worse off than their British counterparts. Britain and France as the two most dominant colonial powers in Africa allows for these comparisons in growth and development to be made. Using a case study of Cote D’Ivoire, this study argues the continuous existence of neocolonialism in former French colonies through cooperation agreements as an explanation to this divergence in growth. The research question posed is: “To what extent was the Cooperation Agreements signed between France and Cote D’Ivoire in 1960 a pivot from France colonial to neocolonial rule in Cote D’Ivoire?” In order to answer this question a conceptual framework focusing in particular on colonialism, extractive political and economic institutions, neocolonialism, dependency, and the structural theory of imperialism were chosen. The methods employed were secondary literature review, content analysis of the cooperation agreements signed between France and Cote D’Ivoire in 1960, and a conducted survey of Ivorians. This study concludes that these Agreements cede to France indirect and subtle control in all aspects of Ivorian statehood: economy, finance, military, foreign policy, diplomacy, trade, judiciary, education, natural resources, and even internal security. This has resulted in Cote D’Ivoire being politically and economically dependent on France. Arguably, the most detrimental to Ivorian growth and development is its lack of monetary control through the continuous use of the colonial currency of the CFA franc and membership in CFA Zone. As a currency, the CFA franc is pegged to the French franc and now Euro. This study argues that the currency is overvalued and incongruent to growth and development in an agricultural export-based economy like Cote D’Ivoire. And being political dependent on France renders Ivorian leaders reluctant to opt their country out from the CFA Zone, thus perpetuating a cycle of exploitation and inhibiting growth. The result of this study contributes to studies on growth divergence in Africa, and towards understanding relations between former colonies and colonizers, and its impact on global wealth divides and dependency.

Cloud computing has become a prominent paradigm to offer on-demand services for softwares, infrastructures and platforms. Cloud services are contracted by a service level agreement (SLA) between a cloud service provider (CSP) and a cloud service user (CSU) which contains service definitions, quality of service (QoS) parameters, guarantees and obligations. Cloud service providers mostly offer SLAs in descriptive format which is not directly consumable by a machine or a system. The SLA written in natural language may impede the utility of rapid elasticity in a cloud service. Manual management of SLAs with growing usage of cloud services can be a challenging, erroneous and tedious task especially for the CSUs acquiring multiple cloud services. The necessity of automating the complete SLA life cycle (which includes SLA description in machine readable format, negotiation, monitoring and management) becomes imminent due to complex requirements for the precise measurement of QoS parameters. Current approaches toward automating the complete SLA life cycle, lack in standardization, completeness and applicability to cloud services. Automation of different phases of the SLA life cycle (e.g. negotiation, monitoring and management) is dependent on the availability of a machine readable SLA. In this work, a structural specification for the SLAs in cloud computing (S3LACC in short) is presented which is designed specifically for cloud services, covers complete SLA life cycle and conforms with the available standards. A time efficient SLA negotiation technique is accomplished (based on the S3LACC) for concurrently negotiating with multiple CSPs. After successful negotiation process, next leading task in the SLA life cycle is to monitor the cloud services for ensuring the quality of service according to the agreed SLA. A distributed monitoring approach for the cloud SLAs is presented, in this work, which is suitable for services being used at single or multiple locations. The proposed approach reduces the number of communications of SLA violations to a monitoring coordinator by eliminating the unnecessary communications. The presented work on the complete SLA life cycle automation is evaluated and validated with the help of use cases, experiments and simulations.

Thesis: M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1981 / Bibliography: leaf 115. / by C. Edward O'Hara. / M.S. / M.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management

Thesis: M.S., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1976 / Includes bibliographical references. / by Angelika M. Ch. Esser. / M.S. / M.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Economics / Yang M. Chang / There have been considerable discussions about why countries have interests in forming preferential trade agreements (PTAs), which typically take the forms of a “free trade area” (FTA) with Rules of Origin (ROO) and a “customs union” (CU) (World Bank, 2005). This dissertation contains three essays with three different models of trade under oligopoly to analyze various issues on preferential trade agreements. The first essay examines welfare implications of forming preferential trade arrangement (PTAs) between two asymmetric countries that differ in their market sizes. Key findings are as follows. First, when market size asymmetry between two countries is not too large and ROO requirements are not too restrictive, the formation of an FTA with effective ROO can be welfare-improving to both members. Second, the formation of a PTA is more likely to emerge between countries of similar in their market sizes, ceteris paribus. Third, compared to the pre-PTA equilibrium, there are greater reductions in external tariffs under an FTA than under a CU such that a non-member country is relatively better off under the FTA. The second essay presents a three country model of trade under Bertrand price competition to analyze differences in welfare implications between an FTA with ROO and a customs union (CU). It is shown that the maximum limit of ROO requirements over which there are welfare gains from trade for FTA members depends crucially on the degree of substitutability of final goods (or the intensity of product market competition). It is also found that member countries and their final-good exporters are better off in a CU than in an FTA. There are greater reductions in external tariffs under an FTA than under a CU such that a non-member country is relatively better off under the FTA. The third essay presents a three country model of FTA with Cournot quantity competition and derives the maximum enforceable level of ROO over which there are welfare gains from trade to each member country. It is shown that ROO and external tariffs are strategic complements such that the higher is the regional input restrictions, the higher is the external tariff necessary to induce firms to fully comply with ROO requirements. It is also shown that an FTA with effective ROO has a positive effect on the final-good trade. But the trade-diverting effect does not occur in the final-good sector.

Text in Afrikaans / In enige arbeidsverhouding bly dit wenslik dat partye hulle onderlinge verpligtinge vrywilliglik sal nakom. Soms is dit nie moontlik vanwee die onderlinge wantroue tussen partye nie en daarom is di t belangrik om te let op wyses van afdwinging van nywerheidsraadooreenkomste, versoeningsraadooreenkomste en vasstellings en bevele van die Nywerheidshof. Nywerheidsrade en versoeningsrade is die instrumente wat daar gestel is sodat partye onderling kan beding om geskille te voorkom en ooreenkomste van onderlinge belang te beding. Daar is sekere regsgevolge verbonde aan die publikasie van sodanige ooreenkomste en as sodanig word dit as h vorm van ondergeskikte wetgewing beskou. Wat die afdwinging van sodanige ooreenkomste betref speel die strafsanksie h belangrike rol. Ooreenkomste word egter nie noodwendig gepubliseer nie en soms is die strafsanksie ook nie altyd die aangewese een nie. In sodanige gevalle sal daar na siviele sanksies gekyk moet word vir die afdwinging van sodanige ooreenkomste. Daarbenewens maak die Wet ook voorsiening dat sodanige ooreenkomste as h onbillike arbeidspraktyk ~n die Nywerheidshof afgedwing kan word. Die strafsanksie en die siviele sanksie het egter hulle tekortkominge en dus moet dear gekyk word na alternatiewe wyses vir die afdwinging van ooreenkomste. / Constitutional, International & Indigenous Law / LL.M

In most cases in a deceased person’s estate, there are problems with co-ownership where more than one family member inherits the deceased family estate assets. To escape the perils of co-ownership the beneficiaries consensually agree to divide the inherited communallyshared asset/s. This agreement can take place immediately after the death of the family estate owner or some time later regarding some or all of the said assets. On the conclusion of the division agreement, the contractual party who receives the awarded assets enjoys sole ownership and the other contractual parties by agreement retract their ownership. In a jurisprudential content analysis of forty-six recorded family deceased division agreements from Old Babylonian Larsa and Nippur, essential elements are identified which are the framework and qualification requirements for a family deceased division agreement. Within this framework the concepts, terms and elements of the agreement are categorised as natural and incidental elements, which reflect the specific law traditions and choices of contractual parties and show the unique scribal traditions in the different Old Babylonian city-states of Larsa, Nippur and Sippar. The aim of the study is to shed a more focused light on the interpretation of recorded Old Babylonian division agreements and to show that the division agreement was a successful, timeless, estate administration mechanism and tool to obviate any undesirable consequences of co-ownership of the bequeathed property. / Old Testament & Ancient Near Eastern Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Ancient Near Eastern Studies)

The North American Free Trade Agreement continues to be a controversial topic, and with the impending implementation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, NAFTA has been a heavily discussed issue during the 2016 presidential campaign. Past research has critically assessed the extent to which NAFTA delivered on promises made by its lobbyists to improve economic welfare and stimulate growth in the North American markets, via trade and investment. These studies explain that NAFTA has helped to boost intra-regional trade and investment flows in North America, but has fallen short on any substantial improvements in welfare and deeper regional economic integration. However, researchers have found evidence for convergence among North American equity markets, and argue that this is generated by NAFTA. Using time series data from 1990 to 2007, this study builds on these conclusions to examine how NAFTA impacted equity markets in the North American region. I look at returns to each major stock index for Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, and find evidence that returns on these indexes improve in the post-NAFTA period for Mexico and the U.S., but not for Canada. Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that exports and FDI are the primary drivers for this improvement in stock returns.

A common finding in the international trade literature is that economic integration leads to export diversification. By documenting a positive link between joining the European Economic and Monetary Union and bilateral export concentration, the leading essay shows that this is not always the case. Using a panel data approach, I find that exports between the Eurozone members are on average more concentrated than those among countries which do not share the euro. Central to this outcome is that some economic integration agreements, such as the European Economic and Monetary Union, may lead to a drop in not only trade but horizontal FDI costs as well. Theoretically, the results can be explained by the substitutability between exporting and horizontal FDI within a two-sector, two-firm type model which allows for sectoral trade cost heterogeneity. Since the early 1970s, a series of international environmental agreements (IEAs) were signed, ratified, and enforced throughout the developed and developing nations. Regarding IEAs as potential barriers to trade, the second essay seeks to quantify their impact on industry-level exports by using a gravity regression approach. I proceed by classifying industries into dirty and clean based on their average emission intensities and find that the ratification of IEAs is associated with a significant reduction in export flows. The decrease is more pronounced for industries which are classified as dirty or for those which are characterized by high emission intensities per unit of output. Additionally, climate change IEAs bring about a compositional shift towards cleaner exports. Lastly, climate change and acid rain IEAs are found to engender leakage effects. No such evidence is recovered for ozone depletion accords. The third essay adds to the literature on the Kyoto protocol and the carbon content of bilateral trade. It does so by analyzing the effect of ratifying the Kyoto protocol on exports, the carbon dioxide (CO2) intensity of exports, and the CO2 emissions embodied in exports within a novel dataset of 149 countries. For parties that took on binding emission caps, the ratification of Kyoto protocol leads to (i) lower CO2 emissions embodied in exports, (ii) lower CO2 emission intensities, but (iii) higher overall exports. For the same group of countries, a year-by-year analysis underlines a permanent decline in both the CO2 emission intensity and the CO2 content of their exports. Furthermore, the analysis also points out to a short-run decline in exports. In the long run, however, exports are estimated to recover. Also, the commitment type or whether a party was designated as a transition economy at the time of ratification are found to shape the above three outcomes.

Section 26 of the Labour Relations Act 95 of 1996 makes provision for the introduction of closed shop agreements at the workplace between majority unions and employers. All employees covered by such agreements are required to be members of such unions or otherwise face the possibility of dismissal. "Conscientious objector" employees are an exception to this rule. The purpose of this submission is to investigate the constitutional validity of s26 in the light of the fundamental right to freedom of association in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1 996 whilst investigating the position of "conscientious objectors" in certain foreign jurisdictions. / Thesis (LL.M. (Labour Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2006.