This thesis contributes to the literature of asset comovement and crisis contagion in several aspects. First, it extends the study of contagion using an asset pricing framework to the two recent crises: the Global Financial crisis and the European debt crisis, and to a wider set of markets, including both developed and developing markets in order to compare and contrast the effects of different crises on different markets. Second, the thesis studies in detail the time-varying patterns of integration during crisis episodes. An interesting finding is that markets tend to become segmented during the latter half of a severe crisis. In other words, if a crisis is strong enough it can hamper the integration process. Such behaviours are observed in both developed and developing markets. Third, the thesis investigates the comovement and contagion of style portfolios in response to increasing interest in style investing. More specifically, it examines if portfolios sorted based on different firm characteristics exhibit different integration and contagion behaviours during different crises and finds distinct differences in the impact on integration and level of contagion from each crisis. The estimated results indicate complex integration patterns which have strong impacts on diversification. Similar to country portfolios, style portfolios also become segmented during the crises. Although contagion signals are detected, there is no clear evidence regarding which portfolios are more prone to contagion. Finally the thesis studies the behaviours of both time-varying global and regional integration patterns of each industry sector overtime and during each financial crisis and examines cross-region contagion for all the industries in the world. Empirical results provide evidence that contagion can occur in the same industry across region. Hence the result supports diversification across different industries across different regions rather than holding stocks of the same industry across regions.

Movable non-current assets are physical and mobile assets that a municipality uses to provide services to the community directly or indirectly. Therefore, effective movable non-current asset management is necessary to ensure that these assets provide value to both the municipality and the community. This study seeks to determine whether poor asset management negatively affects capital budgeting for procurement of movable non-current assets. Mbhashe Local Municipality, a Category B municipality in the Eastern Cape Province was selected for the study. A desktop research method was utilised for this study. The analysis of secondary data includes policy documents (such as National Treasury asset management guidelines and Mbhashe budgeting policy), books, journals, internet data, newspapers and research documents in order to determine asset management guidelines and budgeting theories by noteworthy scholars. Auditor General South Africa (AGSA) and State of Local Government Finance reports were also analysed to establish the current practice and impact of the role of the municipal management in its finances as well as budget spending patterns at Mbhashe Local Municipality. The results of the study revealed that Mbhashe Local Municipality’s non-compliance with asset management and budgeting policies and procedures throughout the period of the study negatively affected their capital budgeting decisions. The consequences of instability in leadership and lack of approved movable non-current asset management policy resulted in partial asset information, incorrect recording and accounting systems for assets and unauthorised disposal of strategic movable non-current assets. Although, an approved budget policy existed at Mbhashe Local Municipality, the budgetary information was unrealistic because of negligence such as: lack of public participation, consultation and alignment of the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) with the municipality’s objectives. This resulted in habitual under-spending of capital assets compared to the capital budget throughout the period of the study.

Magister Legum - LLM / This paper seeks to examine the relationship between foreign aid and corruption in Zambia. Drawing from the analysis of the two, it then explores whether the existing legal instruments are adequate and effective to combat corruption in the aid context.

Magister Legum - LLM / Corruption is rampant in Tanzania. It is one of the major obstacles to the economic growth and sustainability of the country. The country loses a huge amount of money through corrupt practices. It is estimated that 20% of the national budget is lost to corruption annually. In recent years, Tanzania experienced grand corruption scandals which involved senior public officials and high political leaders. Between 2005 and 2006, 22 companies stole 133 billion Tanzanian shillings, the equivalent of$96 million, from the External Payment Arrears Account facility at the Central Bank of Tanzania. The discovery of this theft led to the investigation and prosecution of a number of perpetrators, including big businessmen and senior officers of the Central Bank of Tanzania. However, hitherto no assets have been traced and recovered from the offenders, save a handful of money which was paid back by a few perpetrators on condition that they would not be prosecuted. Furthermore, in 2008 a government minister by the name of Andrew Chenge was forced to resign after he allegedly was implicated in taking a bribe of $1 million from the British company, BAE Systems, in relation to a $40 million radar deal. Sources disclosed that Chenge deposited the alleged bribe money in one of his offshore accounts, but this money has not been recovered by the state. In response to the corruption problem, Tanzania enacted various anti-corruption laws. These laws include the Anti-Money Laundering Act (2006), the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Act (2007), the Proceeds of Crime Act (1991) and the National Prosecutions Service Act (2007). These laws contain provisions for the confiscation of proceeds of crime as one means of combating economic crimes. However, grand corruption persists in the country and only a few stolen assets have been confiscated to date. It is on this account that this study is exploring confiscation procedures in Tanzania.

Magister Legum - LLM / Corrupt practices such as bribery and other abuses of public functions for private gain have been criminalised in almost all legal systems. Criminalisation of acts of corruption constitutes one of the major dimensions of the international anti-corruption instruments. The clandestine nature of corruption crimes creates difficulties in gathering evidence for prosecution and effective implementation of the law. To overcome such problems, some indicators of corruption such as possession of property that far exceeds legitimate sources of income need to be criminalised. It is also imperative to deal with the challenges associated with such criminalisation. This paper tries to analyse the challenges related to due process of law in the investigation and prosecution of illicit enrichment. Further, complexities associated with the process of recovering illicitly acquired assets, such as resources and expertise, as well as effective co-operation among various jurisdictions, need to be explored. Special consideration will be given to the criminalisation of illicit enrichment and its prosecution in the Ethiopian anti-corruption legal framework.

Doctor Legum - LLD / The international legal framework on money laundering encourages states to put in place effective systems for the identification, freezing, seizure and forfeiture of proceeds and instrumentalities of crime. While the international legal framework obligates countries to adopt conviction-based forfeiture (criminal forfeiture), it only encourages them to consider adopting non-conviction based asset forfeiture (civil forfeiture). This has led to a situation where countries, such as Malawi, adopt only criminal forfeiture and not civil forfeiture. This study analyses the efficiency of the existing Malawian criminal forfeiture regime in curbing and preventing the proliferation of underlying profit-generating crimes and money laundering. This thesis contends, in part, that some countries have not adopted civil forfeiture because there is no international obligation to do so. It argues that the fact that states are not obligated to adopt civil forfeiture by international legal frameworks and national arrangements undermines the deterrent aim of the anti-money laundering and asset forfeiture systems in combating economic crimes. Some justify the casual approach to civil forfeiture by arguing that its implementation harbours the danger of violating human rights and constitutional guarantees. This thesis, however, advocates for the adoption of civil forfeiture within the limits of John Locke’s social contract theory, which guides states on how they can pursue policies and implement laws without limiting the rights of their people arbitrarily.

This thesis examines the performance of currency-only portfolios with different strategies, in out-of-sample analysis. I first examine a number of passive portfolio strategies into currency market in out-of-sample analysis. The strategies I applied in this chapter include sample-based mean-variance portfolio and its extension, minimum variance portfolio, and equally-weighted risk contribution model. Moreover, I consider GDP portfolio and Trade portfolio as market value portfolio for currency market. With naïve portfolio, there are 12 different asset allocation models. In my out-of-sample analysis, naïve portfolio performs reasonably well among all 12 portfolios, and transaction cost does not seriously affect the results prior to transaction cost analysis. The results are robust across different estimation windows and perspectives of investors from different countries. Next, more portfolio strategies are examined to compare with naïve portfolio in currency market. The first portfolio strategy called ‘optimal constrained portfolio’ in this chapter is derived from the idea of maximising the quadratic utility function. In addition, the timing strategies, a set of simple active portfolio strategies, are also considered. In my out-of-sample analysis with rolling sample approach, naïve portfolio can be beaten by all the strategies discussed in this chapter. In chapter six, the characteristics of currency are exploited to construct a currency only portfolio. Firstly, the pre-sample test proves that the characteristics, both fundamental and financial, are relevant to the portfolio construction. I then examine the performance of parametric portfolio policies. The results show that while fundamental characteristics can bring investor benefits of active portfolio management, financial characteristics cannot. Moreover, I find the relationship between characteristics of currency and weights of optimal portfolio. The overall results show that currencies can be thought of as an asset in their own right to construct optimal portfolios, which have better performance than naïve portfolio, if suitable strategies are used. In addition, ‘lesser’ currencies, indeed, bring significant benefits to the investors.

This thesis deals with a set of overlapping problems in finance and econometrics which involve nonlinearities and dynamics: nonlinear co-integration, asset pricing dynamics and nonparametric derivative asset pricing.

The recent financial crisis highlights the importance of understanding factors that affect financial market price efficiency. Experimental methods allow us to control the intrinsic value of an asset, thus become an attractive technique for studying asset market price efficiency. This dissertation consist three essays, all of which devoted to experimental asset markets. The first essay explores the role of liquidity on the mispricing of an asset. This issue has been the subject of Kirchler et al. (2012) AER paper. By re-analysing the evidence in that article, the first essay concluded that their experimental design have a weakness that biased the results. Therefore, I designed an experiment that eliminates the weakness. The results of my experiment indicate that Constant C/A ratio could reduce mispricing of experimental asset market significantly, but not necessary to lead to undervaluation. The second essay explores how the description of the asset market to the human participants influences the mispricing of the asset being traded. This issue has been the subject of Kirchler et al. (2012) AER paper. When re-assessing the evidence, I was puzzled by the findings and thought that the small sample size of the dataset collected might explain why a minor change to the description of the asset market provided to the participants produced completely different behaviour. This essay replicates the experiment, with a larger sample size and relies on different statistical tests to analyse the data. I find that the treatment with a different contest (“stocks of a depletable of gold mine”) exhibits similar level of mispricing and overvaluation with the baseline treatment., which is not consistent with Kirchler et al. (2012). The third essay is about an experiment that compares how team decision-making vs. individual decision-making differ in how they influence the mispricing of the asset being traded. The main result is that team decision-making does not result in smaller price bubbles. However team decision-making result in less variance among markets (sessions). Further more, my experimental design allows us to record the chat dialogues, which enable us to have insight into team decision-making. The content of the messages allows us explore the reasons behind traders' asks and bids.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / Government’s immovable assets are fundamental in achieving its service delivery objectives. If not put to productive uses the welfare of a country, or even its national income, could be reduced significantly. The value for money principle should resonate through effective asset management. “Poor management” of closed school buildings worth millions may be regarded as “financial wastage”. Four case studies reflecting various outcomes of re-use, abandonment and demolition will be reviewed. The application of legislation and policy on government immovable asset management are problematic when schools are closed down. The study focus will be on government immovable asset management and not the reasons for school closures. Literature in this field is very limited. The research findings could add value to the subject field by minimising the chances of a possible repetition of “bad management” of closed schools. Currently in public discourse is the possible closure of 26 schools in the Western Cape. The research could be used as a guiding document for stakeholders, administrators and other research scholars. The research objectives are to formulate a clear understanding on: The Governance of immovable asset management in government; The Responsibility of the different state stakeholders and their interaction on immovable asset management; and The participation of non-state stakeholders. A Qualitative research design is followed. Tools consist of four case studies, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. A literature review and study of applicable legislative and policy documents was done and empirical data analysed. An international best practice model is also discussed. This study has revealed various research findings through the primary and secondary sources collected. Based on these findings specific recommendations are made to the various stakeholders. The wellbeing of all stakeholders and respondents were set above outcomes and objectives that the research could generate.