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This thesis investigates the impact of domestic transport costs and location on exports originating from exporting regions within a developing country. It is presented in the form of three articles, each addressing a different aspect. These articles are accompanied by a literature review of the background and impact of domestic transport costs on trade. The first article provides empirical evidence for the significance of domestic transport costs in exports and the spatial location of manufacturing exporters. Cubic-spline density functions are used and the results indicate (a) the proximity to a port is an important consideration in most export-oriented manufacturing firms' location, with more than 70% of manufactured exports in South Africa originating from a band of 100 km from an export hub; and (b) there appears to be a second band of these firms at a distance of between 200 and 400 km from the hub. Between 1996 and 2004, manufactured exports in the band between 200 km and 400 km from the nearest hub increased, suggesting either an increase in manufactured exports that depend on natural resources due to demand factors, and/or a decrease in domestic transport costs, amongst others. The second article investigates the question of the location of exporters of manufactured goods within a country. Based on insights from new trade theory, the new economic geography (NEG) and gravity-equation modelling, an empirical model is specified with agglomeration and increasing returns (the home-market effect) and transport costs (proxied by distance) as major determinants of the location decision of exporters. Data from 354 magisterial districts in South Africa are used with a variety of estimators (OLS, Tobit, RE-Tobit) and allowances for data shortcomings (bootstrapped standard errors and analytical weights) to identify the determinants of regional manufactured exports. It is found that the home-market effect (measured by the size of local GDP) and distance (measured as the distance in km to the nearest port) are significant determinants of regional manufactured exports. This article contributes to the literature by using developing country data, and by adding to the small literature on this topic. This article complements the work of Nicolini (2003) on the determinants of exports from European regions and finds that the home-market effect is relatively more important in the developing country context (South Africa), a finding consistent with theoretical NEG models such as those of Puga (1998). The third article is an empirical study of the relationship between export diversity and economic growth in a developing country context. Using export data from19 sectors within 354 sub-national (magisterial) districts of South -Africa, various measures of subnational export diversity are constructed. It is found that it is not only important how much is exported, but that it is also important what it is that is exported. Regions with less specialisation and more diversified exports generally experienced higher economic growth rates, and contributed more to overall exports from South Africa. It is also found that distance (and thus domestic transport costs) from a port is inversely related to the degree of export diversity. Estimating a cubic-spline density function for the Herfindahl index measure of export diversity, it is found that export diversity declines as the distance from a port (export hub) increases. Most magisterial districts with high export diversity values are located within 100 km of the nearest port. Furthermore, comparing the cubic-spline density functions for 1004 with those of 1996 shows that distance (domestic transport costs) has become more important since 1996 (under greater openness) with magisterial districts located further than 100 km from the ports being less diverse in 2003 than in 1996. One may speculate that a possible explanation for this changing pattern of export diversity may be the impact of greater foreign direct investment (FDI) in South Africa since 1996. / Thesis (Ph.D. (International Commerce))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007

Navy Inventory Control Point (NAVICP) is the principle controller of the Navy's inventory consisting of over 470,000 line items valued at over $30B. NAVICP provides the Fleet the parts necessary to maintain weapons systems. In 2003, NAVICP spent over $444M in transportation charges to fulfill customer requests for repair parts. The research in this thesis is the result of an initiative by NAVICP to study the benefits in modifying their current inventory positioning policy for repairable items. NAVICP wishes to incorporate a strategic inventory positioning policy that reduces transportation costs. This thesis develops the Strategic Inventory Positioning (SIP) model that looks at historical inventory demand and determines the optimal storage locations for NAVICP's inventory of repairable items. SIP provides NAVICP an optimization-based tool to aid in determining the strategic inventory location for each repairable item. Using results from SIP and historical transaction data, a cost comparative analysis of 176 of the highest cost and demand volume items shows that using a new synchronized and scheduled truck delivery system combined with strategically locating both new procurements and returns from repair in depots near high demand concentrations, enables NAVICP to reduce annual transportation costs by an average of $110K per repairable item.

As recommender systems have increasingly become prevalent to guide consumers to find their desired products in many industries, understanding the impact of recommender systems on consumer choices is critical to the business performance and raises important policy implications. In this thesis, we examine the role of different recommendation schemes, spanning from interpersonal recommendations in social environment given by peers to product display recommendations in physical shopping environment given by sellers on consumers’ switching and search behavior in two distinct case studies. In the first study, we look at the effect of peer recommendations on subscriber churn in a large mobile network. We find that consumers’ propensity to churn increases with the number of friends that churn and in particular with the number of strong friends that churn. In the second study, we implement an in-vivo randomized field experiment to measure the effect of product display recommendations as book placement on shopper behavior in a physical bookstore. We leverage video tracking technologies to monitor how shoppers respond to random book placement, which induces random search costs. We find that books recommended at the edge of the table are more likely to be picked and taken than those placed at the center of the table. More interestingly, we also find that conditional on being picked, shoppers are equally likely to take books placed at the edge and at the center of the table, suggesting that display recommendations positively affect consumer choice mainly through its effect on the search process and not through its effect on the consideration process. Therefore, we empirically show that provision of recommendations, although in different schemes, may generally help to reduce consumers’ search costs in product or service discovery process, relative to what they would do without such an intervention. Moreover, we perform a comparative analysis between offline and online applications of recommender systems to systematically investigate the current practices, future prospects and policy perspectives when applying recommender systems in physical retailing. All these issues highlight opportunities for physical retailers to design, implement and evaluate their recommender systems that offer convenience benefits and appropriate protection to consumers.

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M.Com. (Business Management) / Exploration, by its very natura, is a risky business; yet, because of the big rewards, it is a business in which huge amounts of money are invested world wide in spite of the risks involved. Success in exploration today, with fluctuating, unpredictable commodity markets, belongs to those operators who can assess the risks involved best, not only the geological, but also economic and financial risk elements. Risk stems from uncertainty, and it is in the recognition and description of uncertainty that the exploration .management can quantify those risks involved in their area of operation, and so minimise their exposure to risk. Because of incomplete knowledge, risk can never be eliminated, but by understanding the extent of uncertainty, Qecision ma~ing in the presence of risk can be optimised. A very important tool in the descriptidn of uncertainty is statistics. The first chapter of this dissertation is therefore spent on a summary of the most important statistical principles used in the description of populations of data. Since the method of analysis suggested in this study is illustrated as applied to hydrocarbon exploration, the next chapter is devoted to a brief description of the calculation of hydrocarbon reserves. Starting with the assumption of complete knowledge, the following geological factors important in the calculation of recoverable hydrocarbon reserves, are introduced: hydrocarbon source rock, reservoir rock, hydrocarbon trap (or structure), seal or caprock, and migration path. The terms porosity, permeability and nett reservoir to gross rock volume are also defined. A method of dealing with risk in each of these factors is demonstrated, by starting with the assumption of complete knowledge, and then gradually introducing uncertainty in the calculation of reserves. The method finally consists of estimating a minimum possible value for each geological factor, a most likely value and a maximum possible value, using statistics, or subjective judgement (depending on the extent of available data). The triangular factor distributions so formed are then combined by way of simulation into a distribution for·recoverable reserves...

The aim of this thesis is clear up patient access to diabetes mellitus. The studied areas are eating habits, access to physical activity and health treatment, which are directly related to the disease. The chapter on diabetic diet will bring knowledge about the monthly cost of food in these patients. This analysis answers the question, whether the amount of the monthly cost of diabetic diets is higher than the cost of food of a person with a rational diet.

Background: Maternity services in South Africa like in many developing countries remains a challenge. The high mortality and morbidity rates recorded in the confidential enquiries to maternal death (CEMD) reports in South Africa support a need for more studies to be done to improve maternal health services. Although clinical procedures are an integral part of the maternal health services, little is known about the current-status of clinical procedures performed in the maternity units of district hospitals and related resource utilisation. The apparently “free” maternity services at government hospitals involve substantial hidden and unpredicted costs, which is not quantified. Aims of the study: To describe the cost of the specific clinical procedures performed at the maternity unit of Thebe District Hospital. Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study design involving a retrospective record review of all maternity patient records for a one-month period in 2009. The month of September is mid-month for the financial year and was chosen as it is reflected a stable month in terms of financial performance. The costing aspect of this study was based on the National Health Reference Price List and UPFS. Data was analysed with NCSS software. Results: The study found that NVD was the main clinical procedures, which is in line with the district hospital package. The CS rate was within acceptable norm but a significant number of BBA is of concern and would require further exploration. The majority of the patients who delivered at this unit are black, unemployed and had no medical aid. Most of them arrived by ambulance although it was not clear whether these patients were coming directly from home or were referred by PHC clinics and CHCs. There were no maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity during the study period. This study documented the direct cost of clinical procedures performed at a district hospital. The Human resources was the main cost driver. The calculated cost for this study was far lower than the costs prescribed in NHRPL for NVD and CS but higher than UPFS. This study highlighted the need for revising the UPFS. Conclusion: The research findings will inform the resource needs for performing specified clinical procedures in maternity section at the Thebe District Hospital and will hopefully be used as a benchmark for maternity sections at all district hospitals in Thabo Mofutsanyana District and elsewhere. It has provided reasonable indications about the costs of each procedure and evidence can be used to determine the costs of each procedure in various district hospitals in the country and worldwide. It can further be utilised to do proper planning for our district hospitals in the province and develop the scientific criteria for resource allocation.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries / Department: Family Economics.