In this thesis conventional indices were compared to Shariah compliant indices within the respective regions and asset classes. Within the equity asset class, on the global side, the MSCI World Index was compared to the Dow Jones Islamic Index, within the United States the S&P 500 Index was compared to the S&P Shariah Index and for South Africa the FSTE All Share Index was compared to the FTSE Shariah All Share Index. Within the fixed income asset class, the Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index and the Merrill Lynch Global Bond Index were compared to the Dow Jones Sukuk Index. In respect of the global and South African equity and the global fixed income, a sample set of Shariah compliant funds were compared to the respective conventional indices. What was found was that overall for the global equity and the United States comparisons, the Dow Jones Islamic Index and the S&P Shariah Index created higher value than the MSCI World Index and the S&P 500 Index respectively and at a much lower level of debt and therefore risk, over the timeframe analysed. Within the South African equity market, the FTSE All Share Index added more value than the FTSE Shariah All Share Index over the time period reviewed, however these are highly concentrated indices, with the FTSE Shariah All Share Index having an over-exposure to commodities. On the fixed income side, the Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index and the Merrill Lynch Global Bond Index created more value than the Dow Jones Sukuk Index over the years investigated, however the data and time horizon analysed were limited. When looking at the funds, definitive conclusions regarding the relative performance between the conventional index and the Shariah compliant fund proxy could not be drawn, however there were certain funds that outperformed the conventional index during specific time periods.

This article-based thesis consists of three main papers that examine the use of fair value accounting in banks and how it can influence behaviour with systemic effects; this helps in understanding the role of fair value accounting in the global financial crisis. The examination consisted of two parts. The first part was the investigation of how fair value accounting was actually used by South African banks. The second part was the development of an analytical model that links together fair value accounting, bank capital regulation and economic outcomes. The South African case study was further divided into two parts. In the first part, a comparative design was used to investigate in detail how fair value accounting was implemented by two South African banks and what their motivations were. The second part sought to answer the question: did South African banks pay out higher dividends based on risky fair value accounting gains? The South African evidence indicates that fair value accounting materially impacts the profit and loss and the regulatory capital of banks. This component of regulatory capital proved to be risky. Dangerous pay-outs resulted from the increase in profits and bank assets grew the most during the period of risky capital formation. It was found that the use of a stock-flow consistent model of the economy was a commonality amongst those that predicted the global financial crisis. A stock-flow consistent model was shown to be descriptive of the South African evidence. The model showed fair value accounting to be at the centre of feedback processes that can weaken the banking system during the economic upswing. The study concludes that fair value accounting is central in processes that weaken the banking system during an economic upswing and thus demonstrates why the current call for prudent accounting in banks is justified. The study expands on current literature in a number of ways. It adds to the literature that fair value accounting is procyclical by demonstrating that this effect is not constant throughout the cycle and is more problematic during the upswing; this differs from the usual argument that fair value accounting accelerates the downturn. The South African empirical evidence showed that fair value accounting for available-for-sale assets is not the only avenue for fair value accounting to be dangerous; fair value accounting adjustments through profit and loss should also be monitored. The analytical model as well as the South African empirical evidence contradicts the common argument that the fair value measurement of financial instruments must be pervasive in a bank and banking system to be dangerous. The South African empirical evidence shows that fair value accounting must be considered a possible avenue of earnings or capital management in banks.

Since South Africa was welcomed back into the international arena in 1994, there has been a significant increase in the number of tax treaties concluded between South Africa and other Sub-Saharan Africa countries, as part of South Africa’s goal to expand into Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The purpose of this dissertation is to determine whether these treaties concluded between South Africa and SSA countries have been influenced by South Africa’s stated tax treaty policy, or have been guided by regional practices or to confirm whether South Africa’s tax treaty practices have influenced any regional models. This dissertation includes a detailed analysis of 18 tax treaties concluded between South Africa and other SSA countries. This analysis is used to identify any significant deviations in these treaties as compared to the OECD Model and the UN Model. The SSA region has several economic organisations that have developed tax models to cater for treaty negotiations of developing countries. These models include the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) Model, the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Model and the East African Community (EAC) tax agreement. The study observes that South Africa’s tax treaty practise generally follows the OECD Model, but also incorporates certain provisions of the UN Model. The analysis of the 18 treaties as compared to the OECD Model identified 31 significant deviations to the OECD Model, and of these deviations, 22 (71%) align to the provisions of the UN Model. These significant deviations were analysed to determine if they arose from South Africa’s stated positions on the OECD Model, influenced by South Africa’s domestic laws, or arose at the insistence of the other Contracting State, or from other factors. v The findings suggest that of the 31 deviations, the majority (80%) arise out of South Africa’s positions on the OECD Model and from its domestic laws. Further analysis was conducted to determine if these significant deviations were contained in the SSA regional tax models. The findings indicate that the SADC Model has the highest correlation as it includes 87% of these deviations, followed by ATAF (77%) and EAC (71%). An additional analysis, by country per regional body, was conducted on the deviations arising from South Africa’s treaty practices. This analysis indicates that 80% of South Africa’s treaty practices occur in the ATAF Model, 84% in the SADC Model, and 72% in the EAC Model. This analysis found that, on average, 82% of treaties concluded with ATAF member countries, 81% of SADC member countries and 89% of EAC member countries aligned to South Africa’s treaty practices. The high correlation to the SADC and ATAF Models indicates that South Africa’s tax treaty practices have influenced the development of these regional models, and the high correlation between the treaties for each country and region, suggests that the majority of the treaties have been significantly influenced by South Africa’s tax treaty practices. Thus, the conclusion is that the majority of the significant deviations found in South African treaties concluded with Sub-Saharan African countries arise from the South African tax treaty practices which are generally based on the OECD model, with the inclusion of certain provisions of the UN Model. These deviations align with South Africa’s position to the OECD Model and its domestic laws, which form the South African treaty practices. It is concluded that these treaty practices have significantly guided the SSA treaties and suggests that these treaty practices have influenced the Sub-Saharan African ATAF and SADC Models.

This study examines shareholder wealth effects of convertible bond announcements in South Africa for the period 2004 to 2017. The data shows that South African companies issue convertible bonds for several reasons and that issues are not only South African rand denominated, but are in other currencies as well. However, a review of the convertible bond announcements show that the majority of convertible bonds were issued in local currencies. In addition to the currency of issue, the study also shows that the majority of the stated practical uses of the proceeds was to finance corporate general purposes (47%, i.e. 7 of the 15 in the final sample) and the repayment of debt (, i.e. 47% that is, 7 out of 15). Contrary to prior studies in Korea and Japan, the results of this current study show that the use of proceeds towards project financing and capital expenditure ranked the least. Empirically, various t- tests were conducted to examine statistical significance of the wealth effects of convertible bond announcements. The findings from the various tests performed consistently showed that the announcements had significant negative price reactions. First, the findings shows that the announcements of convertible bonds in general (that is without distinction) had significant negative price reactions. The announcements in general, had significant negative wealth effects irrespective of whether the announcements were based on local or foreign currency. The results also show that the mean cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) of the issues denominated in rand value were more negative than those made in other currencies. In addition, further tests also show that the mean CARs based on the stated use of proceeds were significantly negative irrespective of whether the issues were for corporate general purpose or for the repayment of debt. Overall, the study shows that convertible bond issues in South Africa have a significant negative CARs around the announcement date.

Includes bibliographical references. / In the 2010 Budget review The South African National Treasury announced it intended to create a business environment that would promote South Africa as a gateway to investment into Africa.1 As such a headquarter company regime would be considered. With globalisation and free movement of capital internationally countries are pursuing holding company regimes to attract investment to, and through, their shores. At the forefront are countries such as Belgium, Denmark, Luxemburg, Mauritius, the Netherlands, Singapore and the United Kingdom.2 Following the 2010 Budget review South Africa has now joined this group.

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation explores National Treasury's mark-to-market proposal which aims to tax the unrealised capital gains of long-term insurance policyholders on an annual basis. Although the proposal was ultimately rejected it remains under consideration. The mark-to-market proposal is evaluated against its intended purpose. The intended purpose is understood to be the collection by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) of capital gains tax (CGT) which has been 'effectively withheld' from policyholders by the insurer. Having gained an understanding of the mark-to-market proposal and its intended purpose, the proposal will be measured against the following criteria: Does it succeed in recovering capital gains taxes which have been 'effectively withheld' from policyholders? What are the side-effects of the proposal, if any?

Includes bibliographical references. / I welcome you in reading this research dissertation looking at the South African General Anti Avoidance Rule. I hope that this paper will shed some light on the complex requirements of the GAAR as contained in section 80A, read together with relevant sections.

Gram-Charlier expansions provide a tractable way of fitting risk-neutral distributions to asset prices. This allows the model to capture skewness, excess kurtosis and higher moments in observed asset returns. Schlogl (2013) proposes a calibration method to ensure the fitted densities are valid and arbitrage free. This method is implemented with standard foreign exchange options and gives an exact fit when enough moments are included in the calibration process. GramCharlier expansions also result in analytic solutions for many exotic option prices through an extremely general framework. This relies on representing an option as a portfolio of the M-binaries defined by Skipper and Buchen (2003). Geometric Asian options are priced using this approach and compared to the corresponding Black-Scholes prices. Numerical examples highlight the effect skewness and excess kurtosis can have on these option prices, particularly for options that are out-the-money. Gram-Charlier distributions are also combined with Monte Carlo simulations to estimate option prices for calls and geometric Asian options. The results show convergence to the analytical solutions for all cases. Additionally, Gram-Charlier estimates for arithmetic Asian options are calculated and compared to Black-Scholes estimates.

There has been a notable decline in the tax morality of South African taxpayers over the years. Tax morality is a term defined as the willingness of individuals to pay tax and comply with tax laws1 . The concerns over the decline in tax morality were raised by the National Treasury when discussing the widening tax gap between the budgeted tax revenue collections and the actual revenue collected (in the 2017 Budget Speech)2 . The importance of tax morality in South Africa cannot be overstated, the very success of South Africa's democracy is dependent on the very functioning of the fiscal citizenship principle, that means the state and the taxpayers must be committed to the operation of the democracy through the social contract, ie the taxpayers must be willing to pay their taxes and the government must provide the services due to the taxpayer, such as healthcare, education services and efficient infrastructure. In the evaluation of South Africa's tax morality, the tax revenue collection process and methodology must be reviewed. For personal income tax, with the exception of PAYE, taxpayers must declare their income earned in order for the income to be assessed. It is for this reason that tax morality should be regularly reviewed, to ensure that taxpayers are motivated to pay the right amount of tax and are compliant with tax laws. Where this is not the case, symptoms of broken fiscal citizenship can include aggressive tax avoidance, base erosion and profit shifting and tax evasion, to an extent that legislation needs to be constantly reviewed in order to protect the South African tax base. To review the tax morality of the Republic, revenue collection statistics such as tax buoyancy are reviewed, revealing that after the 2008/9 global financial crisis, the revenue collection statistics remained buoyant until the 2017/18 period during which time it decreased to 0.91 indicating a threat to the long-term sustainability of the fiscal policy. The tax revenue collections when compared to GDP statistics also signal concern, and when taking into account the rate at which high networth individuals are leaving the country and their reasons, it is clear that the South African government should be applying more focus and resources in improving tax morality. In order to recommend focus areas to improve tax morality, a review of research performed by the OECD globally into the tax morale of individuals and businesses around the world is used. The research focuses on factors influencing tax morale, which is a good indicator of what motivates taxpayers to participate in, and comply with a tax system. An overarching theme for individuals from the identified factors is the perspective of the government taxpayers have. It is this perspective that has been found in the study to influence whether individual taxpayers around the world comply with and participate in the tax laws of the country. For businesses, the most dominant factor appears to be tax certainty and while this is information derived from a general survey and on a limited population, it provides a general overview or a starting point in the improvement of tax morality. With the factors identified, an evaluation of how they impact the South African population and to what extent the findings may be true for the Republic are investigated. The socioeconomic and institutional factors identified in the global study are relatable in the South African context and the results from the survey show parallels between the global population and the South

Spreads between swap legs referencing floating cashflows of different tenors have widened significantly since the global financial crisis of 2008. This frequency basis can be explained by the presence of “roll-over risk”. Defining the roll-over risk state variables in an affine form, this dissertation prices a credit default swap using an “affine transform” methodology. This price is then compared to that obtained from a traditional Monte Carlo simulation approach. The former is shown to produce accurate results with greater computational efficiency, providing a useful way to price complex financial instruments when the state variables are defined in an appropriate form.