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I likhet med i andra länder har det i Sverige under vissa högkonjunkturer uppstått ett så betydande kapitalöverskott, att den finansiella marknaden fått problem att bemästra flödena. Konsekvensen har blivit att den aggregerade risknivån ökat i takt med stigande tillgångspriser. När väl en kontraktion uppstått, har det saknats kapital för att i ordnade former bemästra de nya ekonomiska förutsättningarna. Det är den utvecklingen som föregått kriserna 1878/79, 1921/22 och 1991/92. Temporära insatser har då måst ske vid sidan av det befintliga institutionella systemet. Forskningen ger för Sveriges del en kriskronologi för det finansiella området med krisåren 1763, 1817/18, 1857/58, 1878/79, 1907/08, 1921/22, 1932/33 och 1991/92. Det har vid kriserna 1878/79, 1921/22 och 1991/92 förelegat ett betydande hot om kollaps av det finansiella systemet. Vid dessa tre tillfällen har det efter förhandlingar mellan bankerna och staten kommit att skapas temporära krishanteringsorganisationer – Järnvägshypoteksfonden 1879, AB Kreditkassan 1922 samt Securum AB 1992 – vid sidan om den svenska Riksbanken. Kriserna har hävts med hjälp av de temporärt skapade krisorganisationerna, vilka samtliga har haft en Lender of Last Resort-funktion. Krishanteringstekniken vid krisen 1921/22 kan ses som en vidareutveckling av den som kommit till användning 1878/79. Även om bakgrunden till krisen 1991/92 skiljer sig åt från de två här tidigare nämnda tillfällena, kom tekniken med överflyttandet av tyngande engagemang till ett nytt bolag att likna den teknik som användes redan av AB Kreditkassan. Trots detta betydde tidigare svenska erfarenheter mindre för krisen 1991/92 i detta fall. Idéerna till Securum hämtades istället från senare tids bankkrishantering i USA med inrättandet av så kallade ”bad banks”. Syftet med denna avhandling är att med en institutionell ansats klarlägga och analysera hur de två första av dessa tre finansiella kriser har hanterats. Avhandlingen belyser i detalj det förhandlingsdrama mellan statens och marknadens aktörer som föregått inrättandet av respektive krisorganisation.

Weakness in corporate governance and lack of transparency are often considered causes of, or contributors to, the Asian Financial Crisis. Publicly listed companies in Indonesia, like other Asian firms, have a concentrated ownership structure. Focusing on manufacturing firms listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange (JSX) for the year 2003, this study adopts an agency framework to examine voluntary disclosures included in the annual reports of 149 Indonesian firms and their relationship to various attributes such as: ownership structure; whether a firm is family-owned or not; the owner's involvement in either the Board of Commissioners or Board of Directors; and whether the firm is affiliated with a business group. The results mostly support the notion that ownership structure affects the extent of disclosure in annual reports. First, the results show that, compared to firms with a nonmajority ownership structure, voluntary disclosure is lower in firms with a majority ownership structure. Second, the results indicate that family owned firms are more likely to exhibit lower voluntary disclosure than are non-family owned firms. Third, the analysis shows that, among family firms, firms with a majority (compared to those with a non-majority) ownership structure are more likely to have lower levels of voluntary disclosure. Fourth, the results indicate that, among family firms, firms affiliated with a business group are more likely to make lower voluntary disclosures than independent firms. In contrast, the empirical analysis failed to support the hypothesis that, among family firms, voluntary disclosure would be lower in firms where the owners are involved in the Board of Commissioners compared to those where there is no owner involvement in the Board of Commissioners. Similarly, the results failed to support the hypothesis that, among family firms, voluntary disclosure would be lower in firms where the owners are involved in the Board of Directors compared to those where there is no owner involvement in the Board of Directors. Robustness checks performed using alternate measures of disclosure and the degree of ownership structure did not substantially change the conclusions. This thesis contributes to our understanding of how family firms are governed and the impact of corporate governance on a firm?s level of voluntary disclosure. The results have implications for policy makers and regulators in Indonesia striving to improve corporate governance and transparency.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-88).

Cette thèse, constituée de trois papiers de recherche, est organisée autour de la construction d’indicateurs de crises financières dont les signaux sont ensuite utilisés pour l’élaboration de stratégies de trading algorithmique. Le premier papier traite de l’établissement d’un cadre de travail permettant la construction des indicateurs de crises financière. Le pouvoir de prédiction de nos indicateurs est ensuite démontré en utilisant l’un d’eux pour construire une stratégie de type protective-put active qui est capable de faire mieux en termes de performances qu’une stratégie passive ou, la plupart du temps, que de multiples réalisations d’une stratégie aléatoire. Le second papier va plus loin dans l’application de nos indicateurs de crises à la création de stratégies de trading algorithmique en utilisant le signal combiné d’un grand nombre de nos indicateurs pour gouverner la composition d’un portefeuille constitué d’un mélange de cash et de titres d’un ETF répliquant un indice equity comme le SP500. Enfin, dans le troisième papier, nous construisons des indicateurs de crises financières en utilisant une approche complètement différente. En étudiant l’évolution dynamique de la distribution des spreads des composantes d’un indice CDS tel que l’ITRAXXX Europe 125, une bande de Bollinger est construite autour de la fonction de répartition de la distribution empirique des spreads, exprimée sur une base de deux distributions log-normales choisies à l’avance. Le passage par la fonction de répartition empirique de la frontière haute ou de la frontière basse de cette bande de Bollinger est interprétée en termes de risque et permet de produire un signal de trading. / This thesis is constituted of three research papers and is articulated around the construction of financial crisis indicators, which produce signals, which are then applied to devise successful systematic trading strategies. The first paper deals with the establishment of a framework for the construction of our financial crisis indicators. Their predictive power is then demonstrated by using one of them to build an active protective-put strategy, which is able to beat in terms of performance a passive strategy as well as, most of the time, multiple paths of a random strategy. The second paper goes further in the application of our financial crisis indicators to the elaboration of systematic treading strategies by using the aggregated signal produce by many of our indicators to govern a portfolio constituted of a mix of cash and ETF shares, replicating an equity index like the SP500. Finally, in the third paper, we build financial crisis indicators by using a completely different approach. By studying the dynamics of the evolution of the distribution of the spreads of the components of a CDS index like the ITRAXX Europe 125, a Bollinger band is built around the empirical cumulative distribution function of the distribution of the spreads, fitted on a basis constituted of two lognormal distributions, which have been chosen beforehand. The crossing by the empirical cumulative distribution function of either the upper or lower boundary of this Bollinger band is then interpreted in terms of risk and enables us to construct a trading signal.

The view of on-site school support for curriculum delivery is shared by most countries and its effects have been felt by schools. There is fear that the Austerity Measures will negate the outcomes of the action taken by the teams that visit the schools. The reviewed literature is more biased towards the Austerity Measures in the whole government sector rather than in a department or an institution like the Education District in Idutywa. Even though the effects of Austerity Measures have been researched all over the world based on a specific country, there is deficiency of such literature done in the institution like the department of Education Districts. The researcher intends contributing to the filling of this gap by this study. The researcher therefore carried out a focused study of the effect of Department’s Austerity Measures on on-site school curriculum support in Idutywa Education District. It is also imperative to know how the teachers are affected by these departmental Austerity Measures, hence the interviews were carried out with the school personnel in addition to the District Professional staff. The District is characterised by poor performance in both Annual National Assessment (ANA) and the final National Senior Certificate results. The findings revealed that the implementation of AM have contributed to, amongst other things, the following issues: The inadequate on-site school support for curriculum delivery; The shortage of resources that includes teachers and vehicles; and ultimately the learner underperformance The researcher expect that the recommendation made will be embraced and be factored through, during the planning process of the Eastern Cape Department of Basic Education in order to improve learner performance.

As décadas de 1990 e 2000 foram marcadas por uma série de crises cambiais e financeiras no mundo, atingindo tanto os países emergentes quantos os países desenvolvidos, causando desajustes estruturais, financeiros e reais, nesses países. Identificar as crises cambiais e financeiras é mais complexo no mundo real do que na teoria, uma vez que os regimes cambiais em geral são flexíveis, mas administrados pelas autoridades monetárias, e as taxa de juros, em um contexto de livre mobilidade de capitais, são bastante voláteis. O objetivo do trabalho é centrar a atenção na condução da política cambial por parte das autoridades monetárias, em especial às dos países emergentes, como estratégia de estabilização dos preços e, marginalmente, de crescimento econômico, levando-se em consideração que uma taxa de câmbio de desequilíbrio tende não somente a afetar a dinâmica de preços e a trajetória de crescimento da atividade econômica, mas, também, a protagonizar desequilíbrios de balanço de pagamentos e, por conseguinte, crises cambiais. Diante deste contexto, procura-se verificar a relação de causalidade entre a volatilidade da taxa de câmbio e algumas variáveis macroeconômicas selecionadas, com o propósito de tentar encontrar elementos comuns que permitam entender os motivos que determinam o surgimento de crises cambiais nos países, independente do regime cambial vigente. Para tanto, torna-se necessário uma análise, através tanto da revisão bibliográfica quanto da estatística-descritiva, do funcionamento do mercado de câmbio, dos modelos de crises cambiais e dos desdobramentos das crises que afetaram os países emergentes, nas décadas de 1990 e 2000. Por fim, analisar os movimentos das variáveis macroeconômicas selecionadas e sua relação com o mercado de câmbio nos permite entender, ou verificar, quais fatores, com ou sem relação direta com os fundamentos macroeconômicos, influenciam a dinâmica econômica e a ocorrência de crises cambiais. / The decades of 1990 and 2000 were marked by a series of exchange rate and financial crises in the world, affecting both emerging and developed countries, and causing structural, financial, and real maladjustments in such countries. Identifying the exchange rate and financial crises is more complex in the real world than it is in theory, since exchange rate regimes in general are flexible, but administered by monetary authorities. In addition, the interest rates, in a context of free capital mobility, are quite volatile. The objective of this paper is to focus the attention on the conduct of the exchange rate policy by the monetary authorities, particularly those in emerging countries, as a strategy for the stabilization of prices and, to a smaller extent, of economic growth, taking into consideration that an imbalanced exchange rate tends not only to affect the price dynamics and the growth path of economic activity, but also to bring about disequilibria in balance of payments, and, as a consequence, exchange rate crises. In light of this context, it seeks to check whether there is a causal link between the volatility of the exchange rate and some selected macroeconomic variables, with a view to seeking common elements that enable an understanding of the reasons that determine the emergence of exchange rate crises in the countries, regardless of the existing exchange rate regime. To this end, it is necessary to carry out analysis, both through bibliographic review and descriptive statistics, of the functioning of the exchange market, of the currency crisis models, and of the outcomes of the crises that affected emerging countries in the decades of 1990 and 2000. Finally, analyzing the movements of the selected macroeconomic variables and their relation to the exchange market enables us to understand, or verify, which factors – either directly related to the macroeconomic fundamentals or not – influence the economic dynamics and the occurrence of exchange rate crises.

Uma característica dominante do sistema financeiro contemporâneo é a intrincada rede de conexões entre instituições financeiras, destacando-se a rede de empréstimos do mercado interbancário, através da qual é feita a transferência de recursos líquidos de bancos com superavit de liquidez para bancos deficitários. Ao mesmo tempo em que o mercado interbancário é responsável pela alocação eficiente de liquidez, a estrutura das exposições interbancárias pode ser considerada fator de risco sistêmico por ser fonte de contágio em caso de crise financeira. A insolvência de um banco pode se propagar na rede levando à insolvência de um grande subconjunto conectado de bancos. Estudos empíricos tem evidenciado que algumas redes interbancárias apresentam características de redes livres de escala. O presente trabalho explora as características de contágio financeiro em redes cuja distribuição de links se aproxima a uma lei de potência, através de um modelo deliberadamente simplificado que define a estrutura patrimonial dos bancos a partir de informações de conectividade da rede. Variando os parâmetros de formação das redes obtemos distribuições com diferentes concentrações de dívidas e de direitos, criando três perfis principais, que foram analisados quanto a sua resistência ao contágio. Testamos também o efeito da variação da conectividade em conjunto com a variação da concentração dos links. Os resultados encontrados sugerem que redes mais conectadas e com alta concentração de direitos (com nodos caracterizados por serem grandes credores do sistema) apresentam maior resistência ao contágio. Avaliando alguns índices topológicos de risco sistêmico sugeridos na literatura, pudemos verificar sua capacidade de explicar o impacto da quebra de um nodo sobre o sistema. Embora fique evidente a relação positiva entre os índices e o valor do impacto para os casos de maior magnitude de perdas, a relação é mais fraca para os menores valores de impacto, sugerindo um poder menor de previsão em redes mais resistentes. / One of the most striking characteristics of modern financial systems is its complex interdependence, standing out the network of bilateral exposures in interbank market, through which institutions with surplus liquidity can lend to those with liquidity shortage. While the interbank market is responsible for efficient liquidity allocation, it also introduce the possibility for systemic risk via financial contagion. Insolvency of one bank can propagate through interlinkages leading to insolvency of other banks. Empirical studies have shown that some interbank networks have features of scalefree networks. This work explores the characteristics of financial contagion in networks whose links distributions approaches a power law, using a deliberately simplified model that defines banks balance sheets from information of network connectivity. Varying the parameters of the network creation we obtained links distributions with different concentrations of debts and rights, creating three main network types, which were analyzed for their resilience to contagion. We also tested the effect of a variation in connectivity in conjunction with variation in concentration of links. The results suggest that more connected networks with high concentration of rights (featuring nodes that are large creditors of the system) present greater resilience to contagion. Evaluating some topological indices of systemic risk suggested in the literature, we could verify its ability to explain the impact on the system caused by the failure of a node. While it is clear the positive relationship between the indexes and the impact value for cases of greater magnitude of losses, the relationship is weaker for smaller values of impact, suggesting a lower predictive power in more resilient networks.