There is great expectation that oil development in Ghana will catapult the nation towards prosperity and lead to drastic improvement in the wellbeing of Ghanaians. However, there is also concern that Ghana could fail to achieve these due to the resource curse notwithstanding the fact that scholars of the curse have yet to agree on the inevitability of the curse. Resource curse scholars adduce different reasons for its occurrence or absence. One thing common among the scholars, however, is that none discusses environmental justice in the context of the curse. In this dissertation, I examine Ghana's attempts at avoiding the resource curse through policymaking and implementation using the Guidelines on Environmental Assessment and Management of Ghana's offshore oil sector as a case study. I argue that a strong environmental justice frame is required to avert the curse in Ghana. Specifically, I assess the policy process in Ghana's oil sector, the institutional framework for managing the sector, and analyze the perception of environmental justice for policymaking. The outcome of these assessments show that although the policy process requires broadening for full and effective participation, Ghana has checks and balances policies to avert the resource curse and to deliver environmental justice in the oil sector. In addition, Ghana has an institutional framework that requires strengthening, in various way, in order for it to complement the checks and balances policies

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the stock price development of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the short and long term. If underpricing occurs, conclusions can be drawn about how this affects the price development. The thesis also aims to provide a better understanding of IPOs and their pricing by studying a selection of companies listed on Nasdaq and NYSE in New York. Theory: In order to analyze initial public offerings price discovery both short term and long term, this study will apply the theories The Effective Market Hypothesis, Information Assymmetri and The winner’s Curse.  Method: To answer the purpose of the study, the study applied a quantitative method with a deductive approach. The analyzed companies were identified with the help of two databases to later be used in a t:test. Results: The results show that a statistical significance did not exist for the first day’s closing price nor on the observation’s day closing price. This leads to the acceptance of the study’s null hypothesis.  Conclusion: Although a statistical significance did not exist, the study found similarities with the theories and previous research that was used in the study. The study implies that initial public offerings are a better short term investment than long term. / Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att analysera kursutveckling för börsintroduktioner på kort och lång sikt. Om underprissättning förekommer, kan det dras slutsatser om hur denna påverkar kursutvecklingen. Uppsatsen syftar också till att ge en bättre förståelse för börsintroduktioner och dess prissättning genom att studera ett urval av bolag som noterats på Nasdaq och NYSE i New York.  Teori: För att analysera börsintroduktioners kursutveckling på kort och lång sikt använder denna studie teorier om den effektiva marknadshypotesen, informationsasymmetri och ”The winner’s curse”.   Metod: För att besvara studiens syfte tillämpades en kvantitativ metod med en deduktiv ansats. De analyserade bolagen identifierades med hjälp av två databaser som sedan tillämpades i ett t-test.  Resultat: Resultatet visar att ett statistiskt signifikant samband inte fanns för varken första dagens eller observationsdagens stängningskurs. Detta har lett till att studiens nollhypoteser accepterats. Slutsats: Trots att studien inte kunde visa på statistisk signifikans, fanns likheter med teorier och tidigare forskning. Studien indikerar att det är mer gynnsamt när transaktionen genomförs under börsintroduktionsdagen.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, has been portrayed in scholarly literature as a prominent case of postcolonial African ‘growth failure’. Between 1960 and 2000 oil reserves were exploited resulting in revenues of more than $300 billion to the Nigerian government, while real per capita income fell over the same period. This thesis, by focusing on building and construction in Nigeria from 1960 to 2000, explains how and why Nigeria failed to invest its oil revenues to create long-term economic growth. Its findings have important implications for investment analyses of other commodity-rich countries in Africa and across the developing world. It draws on a wide range of primary quantitative and qualitative sources including government surveys, construction-related company financial data and project lists, industry publications, newspapers, and the correspondence files of a major Nigerian architecture firm. These are used to present a picture of historical building activity which includes a 40-year dataset of cement price and consumption, and a construction supply curve for both the oil boom and bust periods. By quantifying for the first time the long-observed ‘ghost construction’ of the oil boom, this thesis finds that annually about two thirds of what scholars and national accounts statistics had estimated was being invested in construction was never actually invested, implying that what was invested offered a greater return than has previously been acknowledged. Although investment in construction was overstated during the oil boom, during the oil bust construction was understated as major government projects were funded off-budget and away from public scrutiny. This thesis demonstrates that the most productive area of public investment has been infrastructure, and further that the private sector construction industry was a valuable asset which greatly enhanced the government’s ability to implement investment programmes, when it had the political will to do so.

This thesis will focus on Azerbaijan's oil and gas industry; how the country uses its energy revenues within its economy; how it avoids economic pathologies such as the "Dutch Disease"; Azerbaijan's role within the Caspian Basin, and finally, the European Union's energy security and how Azerbaijan's energy resources can impact it. The Republic of Azerbaijan is a natural resource-rich country, and uses its energy resources as a means of socio-economic advancement and stability. Recent developments within the country's natural gas sector have allowed Azerbaijan to become a net gas exporter. The EU's growing demand for energy resources illustrates how important it is for states to have access to secure, stable, and diverse sources of energy. Energy resource exploration and the subsequent export of these products to international markets play a crucial role for the Republic of Azerbaijan's economy. Therefore, this thesis will first provide a brief evaluation of the history of Azerbaijan's energy sector; an overview of the current situation and recent developments; and explore how energy revenues are being distributed in the economy. It will define the interests of other important actors such as Russia, Turkey and the USA; and finally, it will assess the EU energy security, the role of Azerbaijan as the...

(in English): Curse tablets are interesting phenomenon in the Ancient world. The curses are usully written on the lead tablet. Totally there are about 1500 curses found, from which one third is written in latin and 309 from that amount were founf in Roman Britain. I focus on this countable group in my Diploma Thesis. Firstly I prefer the archaeological side of the artefact. The context is usually the only way to date and understand the curse tablet itself. I offer all the sites where information about them is given. We can talk also about the so called prayers for justice which are quite numerous in Britannia. They are of the same principle as curses, but they are not made for satisfied selfish ambitions. They ask gods for help. Most often they are made because of the robbery which has not been punished in the world of mortals, because the thief is not known or there are too many suspects.

近年來大量學術研究已經證實，自然資源對於國家發展眾多層面具有負面影響。過去的大部分研究關注的重點集中於自然資源對於經濟發展、政治體制、制度質量、以及內戰方面，鮮少研究涉及到其對疾病傳播的影響。進入二十一世紀之後人類社會更頻繁地被大規模的傳染疾病困擾。那些自然資源相對豐裕的地區，也正是被傳染疾病頻繁影響並造成大規模傷害的地區。瘧疾就是其中一種分布最廣且對公共健康造成巨大威脅的傳染病。這篇文章旨在研究自然資源對於瘧疾傳播的影響。通過所有國家從2000至2014年時間序列橫截面數據分析，結果證實自然資源豐裕程度以及依賴程度都會導致更多的瘧疾發病數以及更高的死亡數。 / A lot of researchers have proved that natural resources have adverse effects on the development outcomes. Most of the past researches focus on the effects of natural resources on economic growth, political regime, institutional quality, and civil war. An interesting phenomenon is that countries with rich in natural resources are also those affected frequently by contagious diseases. Malaria is one of the widest spread diseases that poses a major threat to public health. This paper aims to analyze the effects of natural resource abundance and natural resource dependence on the spread of malaria. By using the time-series, cross-sectional data of all countries from 2000 to 2014, the result shows that there is a resource curse on the contagious diseases. Both natural resource abundance and natural resource dependence lead to more confirmed cases and deaths from malaria. The effects on the incidence rate and death rate need further analysis.

One of the puzzles regarding IPO’s is that the issuers rarely get upset about leaving substantial amounts of money on the table due to underpricing. The cost of underpricing is the number of shares sold multiplied by the difference between the first-day closing price and the offer price. The research sample of IPOs and JSE databases comprised, respectively, 160 and 321 new applicants for the years 1995-1999. New applicants comprising the research sample raised R12.55 billion with an underpricing cost exceeding R2.85 billion i.e., 22.71 percent of the IPO capital raised. This cost was found to be nearly 10 times greater than the R295 million paid in fees to the corporate advisors by the issuing companies. The prime beneficiaries of this discount were a select grouping of private placement investors at the discretion of the corporate advisors and directors. Mean unadjusted initial first day returns amounted to 55.04 percent. Public Offer IPO’s (solely or as a component of a Hybrid Offer) follow UK influenced corporate legal systems– both in legislative norm and empirical results. First day initial returns were presented per issuer List Board, Method and Type of Listing, IPO capital raised and disclosed use of proceeds. Internationally many theories have been raised as to what has become to be known as the short-run underpricing puzzle. The winner’s curse hypothesis is directly tested flowing from and the unique data availability. It was shown that South African Public and Hybrid IPO Offer methods bear an exceptionally close correlation to UK influenced corporate legal systems and as such proved a reliable empirical testing ground for the winners curse phenomena using the same methodology and equations as their international counterparts hereunder. The UK based corporate law and institutional arrangements in South Africa allow a direct test of the empirical implications of the winner’s curse hypothesis in pricing unseasoned new issues.

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The problem of weak economic development in Nigeria despite a substantial inflow of revenues from oil exports especially from the early 1970s and other subsequent periods is an important issue to examine. This outcome presents a number of problems for any government regime in Nigeria seeking to provide solutions to enable the country to escape the adverse effects of natural resource wealth. At present, the Nigerian government is still struggling to find solutions to tackle the deteriorating state of affairs, particularly in terms of unemployment, rising food prices and internal security. The main aim of this study is to help understand the dynamic relationship between natural resource wealth and economic development. This research study analyses the trajectory of economic and political development in Nigeria over the period 1960 to 2010. This study employs historical political economy and empirical approaches in examining the relationship between oil wealth and economic development. This method distinguishes the study from others carried out in the literature, particularly from those on Nigeria where the common approach in this strand has been to examine the relationship using economic theories alone. The rationale for the approach employed in this study is that Nigeria has its own unique development in terms of politics, which has been influenced by the social structure and colonial history of the country and thus the impact of oil on economic growth should be investigated separately using a historical and empirical approach so as to capture time trend interactions between societal issues, politics and economic outcomes. First, this study examined the relationship between oil and economic performance using social, political and economic factors such as ethnic and regional differences, political instability, changes in ownership structure of the oil sector and government expenditure, which is largely financed by oil revenues. Next, the research empirically examined the impact of these factors on economic sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing. Afterwards, it analyses the impact of political and economic events in the preceding periods on the current or subsequent period that coincided with a return to democratic rule on major economic sectors. In general, the results show that the period, which marked a transition to a stable political regime, has no impact on economic performance from 1999 - 2010. Implicitly, this means that democracy in isolation is not a process that accompanies economic development and that a strong policy which could foster national unity and overcome regional and ethnic differences is needed. In order to promote sound economic development this policy should be dynamic, specific and directed to the promotion of a national agenda that will target and benefit important sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing through creating forward and backward linkages in a multiplier effect.

Environnement et activités humaines interagissent à travers des relations multiples et complexes. Cette thèse s’interroge sur les limites que l’environnement pourrait imposer à la croissance. Le premier chapitre montre que l’environnement peut constituer un frein au développement en diminuant l’espérance de vie des agents, en freinant leur épargne, et peut causer des situations de trappes à pauvreté environnementales. La mise en place de politiques environnementales publiques peut néanmoins permettre d’éviter ces trappes et d’augmenter le niveau de revenu par tête. Dans le second chapitre,l’existence de ressources non-renouvelables polluantes nécessaires à la production est susceptible de freiner la croissance. Cependant, dans la lignée des travaux néoclassiques des années 70, les difficultés liées au caractère fini des ressources peuvent être dépassées par un progrès technologique exogène et des possibilités de substitution capital-ressources suffisantes. Il est par ailleurs démontré qu’une pollution non-persistante provenant de l’utilisation des ressources ne constituait pas un frein au développement. Enfin, le troisième chapitre démontre qu’une forte dépendance aux ressources naturelles affecte négativement la croissance des pays en développement, tandis que l’abondance en ressources naturelles la favorise. La dépendance étant le résultat de choix économiques, une politique de diversification de l’économie consistant à réinvestir les rentes issues de l’exploitation des ressources naturelles dans les secteurs secondaire et tertiaire pourrait permettre de la réduire. Par ailleurs, nous suggérons que développer l’éducation, les institutions et les marchés financiers pourrait permettre de limiter le risque de malédiction des ressources. / Human activities and the environment interact through multiple and complex relations. Can the natural environment be viewed as a limit to growth ? This thesis tries to develop answers to this crucial question.The first chapter shows that environmental degradations may constitute a brake on growth diminishing life expectancy, and thus savings. It also shows that environmental poverty traps may exist. However,public environmental policies may help countries to escape from such traps, and to reach a higher level of income per capita. In the second chapter, we suggest that the existence of polluting non-renewable resources necessary for production may hamper growth. However, we show that flow pollutions caused by the use of resources can’t be seen as a development brake. Then, following neoclassical works of the1970s, we confirm that exogenous technological progress and sufficient substitution possibilities mayal low to overcome difficulties linked to the exhaustibility of resources. Finally, the third chapter demonstrates that, in low-income economies, strong resource dependency dampens growth while abundanceis growth promoting. Dependence is the outcome of economic choices. Thus a diversification policy that consists on investing the rent in secondary and tertiary sectors may help reduce dependence. Finally, we suggest that the development of education, institutions, and financial markets may allow to decrease the probability to experience a resource curse.