<p>This study aims to obtain a better understanding of the development of the kids market. The aim is also to find out the future directions of this market, with a focus on high-end toiletries for children. Furthermore, the authors will highlight important marketing aspects that need to be considered both by companies entering the market, as well as companies already operating on the market. </p><p>The authors already had expectations and general knowledge about the topic, due to its frequent media publicity during recent years, therefore a deductive approach was the most suitable one. Moreover, a qualitative method with open interviews was used in order to obtain a deeper knowledge about the topic. </p><p>The result from the interviews indicates a future growth on the kids market. Companies have to focus a lot on the kids in the future in order to avoid a revenue decline in this particular customer segment.</p>

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.U.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-99).

This study aims to obtain a better understanding of the development of the kids market. The aim is also to find out the future directions of this market, with a focus on high-end toiletries for children. Furthermore, the authors will highlight important marketing aspects that need to be considered both by companies entering the market, as well as companies already operating on the market. The authors already had expectations and general knowledge about the topic, due to its frequent media publicity during recent years, therefore a deductive approach was the most suitable one. Moreover, a qualitative method with open interviews was used in order to obtain a deeper knowledge about the topic. The result from the interviews indicates a future growth on the kids market. Companies have to focus a lot on the kids in the future in order to avoid a revenue decline in this particular customer segment.

Thesis (M.U.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 98-99) Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Finance and Investment, 2017 / Capital markets reforms in emerging, and particularly African markets are of a growing concern. Despite various institutional reforms that began in the early 1980s, the capital markets in emerging countries still exhibit signs of illiquidity, high volatility of returns, high concentration levels and inefficiency. Ambiguous results for such reforms have brought into question the affectivity of major capital markets reforms such as change of settlement cycles, particularly in countries where stock markets are sponsored with public funds. This thesis, therefore, intends to assess the effectiveness of capital markets reforms on development of stock markets by looking at the impact of changing settlement cycle on risk and liquidity at JSE. The objective is met through an assessment of a link between institutional structures and stock micro-structural variables, especially liquidity and risk in the literature review and an assessment of past studies on effects of stock market reforms and changes of settlement cycle on liquidity, risk and efficiency of stock markets. The study then tests the effects of settlement cycle on risk by assessing changes in abnormal returns and changes of variance of returns as a result of settlement cycle change at JSE. It also looks at the impact on liquidity by assessing the effects on the illiquidity measure first proposed by Amihund and Mendeison (2002). The study finds that change of settlement cycle at JSE had positive effects of reducing risk and increasing liquidity. The study also finds that there are no effects on trading activity and concludes that changing settlement cycle impacts largely on risk and to a smaller extend liquidity. / MT 2019

In  turbulent  environments,  the  infused  marketing  function  has  become  an  essential and natural part in the firms’ new product development (NPD). Some scholars define NPD as the transformation of a market opportunity into a product  as a result of the coupling of market assumptions with technological possibilities. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the role of market orientation in NPD, with the specific focus on how market orientation is carried out in NPD and how it affects NPD. This study is built  on  a  conceptual  framework  and  a  tool,  both  are  formed  from  literature.  The authors use the case study to conduct this research, and one company’s (Tylö’s) data is  gathered  through  the  semi-structured  interview.  Some  findings  are  obtained  from analysis: Firstly, market orientation contains two approaches, one is the market-driven approach and the other is the driving-market one, and firm could choose one of them according  to  the  new  product  features.  Secondly,  there  are  four  areas  in  market orientation, for each approach, the specific content in each area is different. Thirdly, the    four    areas    are    identifying    customers’    needs,    collecting    information, inter-functional  coordination  and  taking  action  and  they  move  on  sequentially.  In addition, two crucial factors-time and cost should be paid much attention in NPD.

This dissertation is motivated by two major factors. First, there have been no direct studies conducted for the relationship between market integrity and market efficiency and the driving forces behind the cross-sectional variations in market quality. Second, a better understanding the relationships among market integrity, market efficiency and other mechanism design factors for securities exchanges will facilitate securities exchanges achieve a satisfactory level of market quality. This dissertation consists of three chapters. In Chapter 1, a review of literature on market manipulation will be given. A series of common securities market manipulation strategies and corresponding market surveillance alerts will be explained and defined. In Chapter 2, we develop a testable hypothesis that market manipulation as proxied by the incidence of ramping alerts would raise transaction cost for completing larger trades. We find ramping alert incidence positively related to effective spreads in 8 of 10 turnover deciles from most liquid to thinnest-trading securities. The magnitude of the increase in effective spreads when ramping manipulation incidence doubles is economically significant, 30 to 40 basis points in many moderate liquidity deciles. This compares with an average effective spread of 72 basis points for index-listed securities in the most efficient electronic markets worldwide. In Chapter 3, In Chapter 3 of this thesis, we test the correlation between the levels of market integrity as proxied by the incidence of ramping alerts and a combination of proxies for factors from the following four potential drivers deciding the market quality across securities exchanges: ??? Securities Markets Trading Regulations ??? Securities Markets Technologies ??? Securities Market Infrastructure ??? Securities Market Participants The model we developed to test the correlation between the proxies for level of market integrity and seven proxies for the four potential drivers were estimated with Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Two-stage Least Square (2SLS) error structures assumed, respectively to learn the most about the possible endogeneity of spreads and volatility. By performing Hausman-Wu specification tests, we concluded that simultaneity bias in the thickly-traded deciles is not material for the AI-Volatility and AI-Spread equation pairs. Subsequently, we used the PROBIT model to analyse the probability of adopting RTS across the 240 securities exchange deciles and the likelihood proves to be systematically related to four determinants in our sample. Finally we estimate the structural equations to investigate possible cross-equation correlation of the disturbances with either seemingly unrelated regression (SURL) estimation. Our findings are three-fold. Firstly, in the moderately-traded deciles, we find that the presence of a closing auction (CloseAucDum) reduces the incidence of ramping alerts. Trade-based manipulation proves more difficult when a manipulator???s counterparties can use closing auctions to unwind their intraday exposures. The RTS dummy variable is significantly positively related to alert incidence. In the absence of any panel data on the dynamic effects of adopting RTS, what we are observing in cross section is the perceived vulnerability of certain exchanges to manipulation and their consequent adoption of RTS plus the regulatory regimes required to have a salutary effect on market integrity. Second, in the moderately-traded deciles, we find that the closing auctions and more regulations in pursuit of market integrity lower quoted spreads. RTS and a regulation specifically prohibiting ramping indicate in cross-section the perceived likelihood of more ramping. Thirdly, in terms of the probability of the deployment of a real-time surveillance system, the estimations again differ by liquidity decile grouping. In the moderately-traded deciles, higher alert incidence, the presence of DMA, and higher FDI again increase the likelihood of adopting a real-time surveillance system. Our findings have a couple of policy implications for many securities exchanges in terms of market design and market surveillance. First, the exhibited relationship between alert incidence and effective spreads indicates trade-based manipulation has a significant impact on execution costs. Therefore, the prevention of securities market manipulation not only serves the indirect purpose of improving an exchange???s reputation for market integrity but also contributes directly to achieving a more efficient marketplace. Second, our results indicate that some market design changes can enhance the regulatory efforts to prevent securities market manipulations. For example, to prevent manipulators from marking the closing price, some exchanges could choose to adopt a closing auction or a random closing time, which would make manipulation more costly. Nevertheless, no securities exchange can be designed perfectly. Consequently, exchange and broker-level surveillance backed by effective regulatory enforcement is a necessary and pivotal complement to good design choices.

Univerzita Karlova v Praze Fakulta sociálních věd Institut ekonomických studií Název DP v jazyce práce Family House Market in Europe during the Recent Crisis Podnázev práce Překlad názvu DP v angličtině nebo češtině Trh rodinných domov v Európe počas súčasnej krízy. Typ práce diplomová práce Autor/ka: Adam Béreš Rok zpracování 2015 Vedoucí práce PhDr. Pavel Vacek Ph.D. Abstrakt anglicky This thesis analyzes family house market in seven European countries: the Czech Republic, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland and Slovakia, together with two cities: Bratislava and Prague. The main goal is to compare family house price determinants in transitional countries with developed ones and capture possible effects of the recent economic crisis. In the first part, panel data models are employed to determine price determinants and any housing bubbles. Real GDP growth rate as a proxy for households' income, together with housing loan interest rate proved to be significant price determinant for both groups. Housing market in transitional countries is influenced only by demand side factors like unemployment. Housing market in developed countries is led by demand and supply side factors represented by labor cost index. In the second part of the analysis, VAR model is employed, for each country separately, to detect...