A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering. Johannesburg, 2017 / The primary objective of any mining business unit is to make profit by extracting, processing and selling minerals from a particular mineral deposit. It is important to optimise the extraction of the mineral resource given time, space and resource constraints. The mineral extraction process is often associated with uncertainty due to variable technical and human factors. Technical factors such as grade distribution, ground conditions and equipment reliability influence the performance of the mining production system (MPS). The performance of the MPS is also impacted by human factors such as employee skills, health and attendance. Uncertainty associated with technical and human factors often leads to planned output being different to actuals obtained. Therefore an in-depth analysis of the significant causes of deviations from the planned outcomes becomes a very important exercise. This research investigated the empirical relationships between inputs and outputs in a MPS in order assist management in directing efforts at key production drivers. A literature review revealed that production output is an end result of a chain of processes dependent and directly linked to each other, often referred to as the Mining Value Chain. The processes can be seen as milestones to be achieved within a production project. The process requires technical and human factors as resources. The literature review also highlighted that the production stage is the most obvious stage for investors to realise their return on investment. The production stage which constitutes a MPS was chosen as a relevant research area for the reason mentioned. Once a MPS has been empirically characterised, more effort and resources can be focused on the key decision making variables (DMVs) in order to meet the planned outcomes. A production function was developed accordingly, based on the production logic and historical data. The research concludes that for a typical platinum mine the face advance, face length mined, number of teams, and team size (independent variables) have a statistically significant relationship with the centares (m²) (dependent variable / response variable) produced which is a key performance indicator (KPI) for a platinum mine. A statistically significant regression equation with a coefficient of determination R2 = 0.99835 was obtained for the MPS. The production function can be used to align the physical, technical and human factors together to predict the optimal output level. The production function also highlights that the most significant production lever of the MPS is the face advance, contrary to a commonly held sentiment that lost blasts are the most significant. / MT 2017

Organisations are spending a large sum of capital by investing on physical assets in order to improve productivity and gain competitive advantage. It has become imperative that business leadership turn their attention to the development, implementation and sustenance of physical assets management strategies in order to eliminate operational and reliability risk.

La recherche menée propose une contribution à l’analyse de la performance des hedge funds dansun contexte d’instabilité des marchés financiers. Ce travail de thèse tourne autour de deux axes deréflexions. Le premier axe se propose d’examiner la structure de dépendance entre les mesures alternativesde performance absolue, en mettant en évidence l’impact du changement de base de donnéeset de période d’analyse sur le classement des indices. Dans ce cadre, nous proposons de comparer laperformance de cinq indices de stratégies issus de trois différentes bases de données. L’analyse esteffectuée sur trois périodes : une période avant crise, une période de crise et une période globale.Nous avons pu montrer que l’évaluation de la performance et la dépendance entre les indicateurssont des éléments fortement sensibles à la période d’analyse. De plus, cette analyse confirme qu’iln’existe pas d’indice "universel" pouvant représenter l’univers des hedge funds. Le deuxième axede réflexion est lié à l’analyse de la stabilité des performances des hedge funds sur trois horizons :le court terme, le moyen terme et le long terme. Il ressort de notre étude que la persistance desperformances des hedge funds n’est pas un phénomène de long terme et que le niveau de persistanceest fortement dépendant de la stratégie d’investissement et de l’indicateur de performance utilisé. / This dissertation provides a contribution to hedge funds performance analysis in a financialmarket instability context. The objective of this thesis is twofold. The first aim is to examine thedependence structure between alternative measures of absolute performance, highlighting the impactof the database switch and analysis period changing on the leaderboard of hedge funds indexes.In this framework, we propose to compare the performance of five hedge funds indexes extractedfrom three different databases. The analysis is conducted over three periods : a pre-crisis period, acrisis period and an overall period. Our findings show that the performance evaluation and dependancebetween performance indicators are highly sensitive to the analysis period. In addition, wefind that there is no "universal" index that can represent hedge funds universe. The second thesis’spurpose is related to the hedge funds performance stability over three horizons : the short term,the medium term and the long term. Firstly, it appears that hedge funds performance persistence isnot a long term phenomenon. Secondly, the persistence level is highly dependent to the investmentstrategy and to the performance indicator used.

The goal of this diploma thesis is to apply the calculation methods of productivity in the level of national economics and company economics. Subsequently we found out the results of particular productivity and evaluate their development in both levels. Afterwards we compared individual results of the company with industry.

The objective of this thesis is to describe the role of productivity in the economic development states of EU. Work is also trying to discover what factors have an impact on productivity. In this work was evaluated labor productivity, capital producitvity and total factor producitivty. The thesis contains models that consider human capital. It is also used linear regression and dynamic parameters.

The aim of the Diploma´s work was to explain the concept of corporate and regional productivity and possibility of evaluation. Furthermore to analyze the development of value added on the basis of the specific enterprise data and at the regional level. The theoretical part described the concept of productivity and factors of production. Then followed a description of the business concept of productivity, the possibility of evaluation and rating of regional productivity. In the practical part was characterized selected company. Followed economic data needed to calculate productivity at the enterprise level. The productivity was significantly affected by the economic crisis of 2009. Another part of work was devoted to evaluation of regional productivity. In the last section were compared corporate productivity and regional productivity in the years 2005 - 2011. The comparison showed that labor productivity in enterprise is on a lower level than the sector average. Conversely capital productivity was higher in the enterprise. Another finding was significant annual changes in enterprise productivity compared to the relatively stable of sector development.

Despite the fact that a preponderance of past studies in corporate finance mainly focus on capital structure decision of firms, the problems of “what factors determine the capital structure choice of firms and how firms adjust their capital structure dynamically” are still riddling. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of capital structure and capital structure adjustment dynamics of banks. To this end, the study employed a quantitative research approach. Specifically, secondary data have been collected through document review of annual reports of selected banks for longitudinal/panel research design. Besides, primary data have been collected through a self- administered questionnaire distributed to the selected Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) for the cross-sectional survey research design of the study. As the method of data analysis, the study estimates both static and dynamic panel models using fixed effect and GMM estimators respectively. Besides, in analyzing the cross-sectional survey responses, appropriate statistical techniques for order-ranked and nominal/categorical items of the responses have been employed. Specifically, in the univariate analysis of survey responses, mean scores and percentage of categorical responses have been computed for order-ranked and nominal items respectively. Moreover, to test the significance of differences of mean scores of order-ranked and percentage of responses of nominal items conditional on bank characteristics, the study employed the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test and the likelihood ratio test respectively. As the result, the tax shield from interest tax deductibility, profitability and/or size of free cash flows, growth opportunities and regulatory pressure factors are found to be significant determinants of capital structure decisions, consistently in estimations of panel models and cross-sectional survey. In iii examining the capital structure adjustment dynamics, both the regression estimation and survey results revealed the tendency of banks in Ethiopia to set target capital structure and adjust towards it at a relatively faster speed of adjustment. Besides, both regression model estimation and survey results disclose the asymmetrical target capital structure adjustment of banks. To be specific, overleveraged or undercapitalized banks adjust more quickly than underleveraged or overcapitalized banks. Further, the speed of target capital structure adjustment is found to be heterogeneous across banks that differ in their absolute deviations from target capital structure, size, regulatory pressure for capital adequacy and ownership. Hence, by empirically examining the determinants and dynamics of capital structure of banks in Ethiopia, the study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on the subject under study, and/or it fills a gap in the existing reference literature on the subject. Most importantly, the study tries to untangle the capital structure issues of banks, especially the dynamics, in the context of the least developed financial system where there are no secondary market and oligopolistic banking sector. / Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL) / D.B.L.

Corporate Growth is a concept that has been widely treated in a specific way or as part of strategy theories, in definition and in econometric models and has also been studied in many different aspects and approaches. The author describes in depth the main variables affecting corporate growth and the underlying business processes. This empirical research has focused on Sales, Profit-Cash Flow, Risk, Created Shareholder Value, Market Value and Overall Performance econometric models. These panel data models are based on the 500 Companies of the Standard & Poor’s 500. The methodology used has been very strict in identifying exogenous variables, walking through the different alternative econometric models, discussing results, and, in the end, describing the practical implications in today’s business corporate management. We basically assume that the Functions/Departments act independently in the same company, many times with different objectives, and in this situation clear processes are key to clarify the situations, roles and responsibilities. We also assume that growth implies interactions among the different functions in a company and the CEO acts to lead and coach his immediate Directors as a referee of the key conflicts through his Operating Mechanism. The objective of this PhD Dissertation is to clarify the business priorities and identify the most relevant variables in every process leading to the highest efficiency in reaching a sustainable and profitable growth. It covers the lack of academic studies on the nature and specific driving factors of corporate growth and provides a working framework for Entrepreneurs and Management leading to the Company’s success.

The contribution of this thesis is to build a small macro-econometric model of the Namibian economy, which demonstrates that there is significant statistical support for the hypothesis that there is a contemporaneous relationship between real wage, productivity, unemployment and interest rates in Namibia. This phenomenon has not yet been exploited using macro-econometric modelling, and thus, represents a significant contribution to modelling literature in Namibia. The determination of the sources of unemployment also receives special attention given that high unemployment is a chronic problem in Namibia. All models specified and estimated in the study use the SVAR methodology for the period 1980 to 2013. The study develops a small macro-econometric model using three modular experiments, which include, a basic model, models that separately append demand and exchange rate channels variables to the basic model, and the specification of a small macro-econometric model. The ultimate aim is to find out if monetary policy plays a role in influencing labour market and nominal variables. The hypothesis that the basic real wage, productivity, unemployment rate and interest rate system can be estimated simultaneously is validated. Further, demand and exchange rate channels variables are found to have important additional information, which explains the monetary transmission process, and that shocks to labour market variables affect monetary policy in Namibia. The results also show that the demand channel (import prices and bank credit to the private sector) and the exchange rate channel (nominal exchange rate) variables have important additional information, which affects monetary transmission process in Namibia, which justifies their inclusion in the small macro-econometric model. In addition, shocks to the import price and exchange rate in the macro-econometric model significantly affect labour market variables. However, shocks to bank credit only partially perform as expected, implying that its results need to be considered cautiously. The study further finds that tight monetary policy shocks significantly affect real and nominal variables in Namibia. The results also show that shocks to all variables in the unemployment model significantly affect unemployment, suggesting that the hysteresis assumption is corroborated. This implies that long run aggregate demand is non-neutral in Namibia. / Economics / D. Litt. et Phil. (Economics)