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Magister Legum - LLM

Magister Legum - LLM

Thesis (MBA (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: South Africa has been integrated into the global economy since the abolishment of the apartheid era in 1994 through a rapid programme of trade liberalisation. Its footwear industry illustrates the effects of these policies on companies and their real output, employment and wage payments, which are among the most important channels through which the market forces (supply and demand) affect poverty in a developing economy. Exporting has been driven by trade liberalisation, but the restructuring of companies to keep up with technology and the effect of cheaper imports from the East have been the main reasons for a substantial fall in total employment, while manufacturing has stagnated. Labour productivity has increased with better production methods and some innovation, which had a positive effect on wage payments to workers in this labour-intensive industry. South Africa has not been isolated from the world recession that began in 2008, therefore manufacturing – the second biggest sector in SA – has been in free-fall this year, sliding by double digits on a year-on-year basis. The footwear industry’s attractiveness is therefore seen as moderate, but with potential once the economy starts growing again. A factor that needs to be taken into account is the exchange rate of the South African rand, which has gained more than 20 per cent to the dollar so far this year. This has been the main reason why the fall in exports has been larger than that of imports. These lower imports also highlighted weak consumer demand. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Vanaf 1994, met die beëindiging van die apartheidsera, het Suid-Afrika se toetrede tot die wêreldekonomie voortgesnel danksy handelsintegrasie. Die Suid-Afrikaanse skoenbedryf is ’n tipiese voorbeeld hiervan, en maatskappye in die bedryf getuig daarvan deur werklike uitsette, werkverskaffing en loonbetalings wat die belangrikste vorme is om markewewigte (vraag en aanbod) in a onderontwikkelde ekonomie te bevredig. Uitvoere is die gevolg van hierdie handelsintegrasie, maar vele maatskappye het agterweë gebly om tegnologies vooruit te gaan. Tesame met goedkoper invoere uit die Ooste, was dit die vernaamste rede vir werkloosheid in die skoenbedryf terwyl produksie gestagneer het. In sekere gevalle het werkers se produktiwiteit verhoog as gevolg van beter produksiemetodes en innovasie, wat ’n positiewe effek op die salarisse en lone van werkers in die bedryf gehad het. Die wêreldresessie in 2008 het Suid-Afrika ook negatief beïnvloed, veral die tweede grootste sektor, naamlik vervaardiging, wat tot dubbelsyfers gedaal het op ’n jaar-op-jaar basis. Die skoenbedryf word gesien as ’n gematigde bedryf om in besigheid te doen, maar met heelwat potensiaal wanneer die Suid-Afrikaanse ekonomie weer begin groei. ’n Belangrike faktor is die wisselkoers van die Suid-Afrikaanse rand teenoor die Amerikaanse dollar, wat met meer as 20 persent toegeneem het. Dit is die hoofrede vir ’n groter daling in uitvoere as invoere. Laer invoere beklemtoon ook die swak verbruikersvraag.

De 1987 à 1997, le transport aérien intra-européen a connu un bouleversement institutionnel sans précé-dent avec sa libéralisation, c’est-à-dire le passage d’un environnement très régulé et contraint par les États à un environnement libéral. Au terme de ce processus, toute compagnie communautaire peut opérer n’importe quel vol intra-communautaire et les aides d’État sont interdites, obligeant les compagnies à être financière-ment rentables. La liberté d’accès au marché et l’impératif de rentabilité sont de nature à faire évoluer la géographie des réseaux et donc la desserte des ré-gions européennes par le biais de différentes dynami-ques (développement ou rationalisation des compagnies préexistantes, émergence de nouvelles compagnies, faillites, réorganisation des services publics,…). La libéralisation du ciel européen a effectivement conduit à soumettre l’essentiel de l’offre intra-européenne aux « lois du marché », les services publics étant devenus résiduels (moins de 5% des sièges intra-européens). Pour autant, la concurrence à l’échelle des lignes n’est pas devenue la norme. Elle a certes aug-menté, en particulier sur des grandes lignes domesti-ques jadis très protégées, sur les principales lignes européennes entre régions métropolitaines et sur les lignes nord – sud à vocation touristique. Cependant, le développement de nombreuses nouvelles lignes exploi-tées par une seule compagnie a paradoxalement aug-menté le nombre et la part des monopoles de fait. De nombreuses concurrences n’ont lieu qu’indirectement, soit au travers de filiales étrangères (par exemple Spa-nair appartenant à SAS), soit par des compagnies low-cost opérant depuis des aéroports secondaires plus éloignés des grandes agglomérations européennes (par exemple Hahn au lieu de Francfort). Entre 1991 et 2005, la desserte de l’espace européen libéralisé connaît d’importantes évolutions. D’une part, le volume de l’offre (en sièges) est presque multiplié par deux (+85%, +81% si l’on se limite aux vols intra-européens), soit un taux de croissance annuel moyen de 5,6%. Cette croissance concerne plus l’offre interna-tionale que nationale, qui l’emporte maintenant sur la seconde. D’autre part, la dynamique d’ouverture et de fermeture de lignes est spectaculaire : 1308 créations contre 459 disparitions, si bien que le nombre total de lignes a augmenté de moitié et que le réseau européen actuel est un réseau pour moitié renouvelé par rapport à celui de 1991. Cependant, le poids en sièges des lignes héritées est de 8/10. Le réseau européen actuel est donc quantitativement toujours dominé par les relations historiques, qui constituent l’armature de la desserte aérienne européenne. Les espaces touristiques balnéaires méridionaux ont capté une grande partie de cette croissance (3/10 des nouvelles liaisons, ¼ de l’augmentation générale du nombre de sièges). Si l’on y ajoute le tourisme urbain, on observe très clairement une banalisation du tou-risme aérien. Une typologie évolutive des réseaux à l’échelle des compagnies a révélé des stratégies différenciées et donc des impacts variés en termes de desserte des territoires. Les grandes compagnies nationales ont généralement fortement développé leur offre tout en la concentrant plus encore sur leurs bases aéroportuaires traditionnelles organisées en hubs. Parfois, un second hub a dû être créé pour contourner des problèmes de saturation (Munich en plus de Francfort) ou mieux coller à la demande (Milan en plus de Rome). Les compagnies classiques ont aussi pris des participations dans des petites compagnies afin de pénétrer plus facilement, et à moindre coût, des marchés étrangers. Ces filiales — et leurs réseaux — ont parfois été converties en opéra-teurs régionaux alimentant les grands hubs. Par ail-leurs, diverses petites compagnies ont pu se développer à l’échelle européenne, sortant souvent de leur cadre national classique. Ces développements se sont tantôt faits au bénéfice des villes « de province » (en particu-lier en Grande-Bretagne), tantôt par concentration sur la capitale (en particulier dans les pays où les villes de province ont peu de poids économique et démographi-que). Enfin, des compagnies charters ont transformé leur offre en offre régulière, la rendant plus ouverte au public, au profit des zones touristiques méridionales qui sont ainsi plus facilement accessibles. Mais la plus spectaculaire évolution est sans doute le développement des compagnies low-cost. Celles-ci sont responsables de 4/10 de la croissance de l’offre (en sièges) sur la période 1995-2004 ; elles sont aussi mêlées à 3/10 des nouvelles lignes européennes ouver-tes entre 1991 et 2005. Leurs réseaux renforcent les liaisons entre régions métropolitaines et entre celles-ci et les destinations touristiques. En outre, les régions subcentrales leur doivent la moitié de leur desserte et presque toute leur croissance. De nombreux petits aéroports leur doivent l’essentiel, voire la totalité, de leur desserte et de leur croissance, en particulier dans les régions subcentrales et intermédiaires. Ceci a consi-dérablement modifié les rapports entre compagnies et gestionnaires d’aéroports, plaçant ces derniers dans un rapport de forces qui ne leur est pas toujours favorable. Ces dynamiques viendraient presque faire oublier les décroissances. D’une part, des faillites ont parfois eu un effet négatif marqué sur la desserte des villes, comme nous l’avons en particulier montré pour Bruxelles avec la faillite de la Sabena. D’autre part, les services publics subventionnés semblent être en régression, bien que l’analyse détaillée du cas français montre que la géo-graphie des services publics antérieurs à la libéralisation découlait parfois plus d’exigences politiques locales que de besoins réels. A l’échelle régionale, l’analyse des évolutions par types économiques régionaux montre qu’au-delà de taux de croissance très variés et malgré toutes les dynamiques étudiées, la répartition de l’offre est demeurée assez constante : il n’y a pas de remise en cause de la hiérar-chisation de l’espace européen. Les régions métropoli-taines continuent en effet à polariser une très grande partie de l’offre et sont toujours les points de passage quasi-obligés pour les vols intercontinentaux. Un niveau en dessous, les régions centrales disposent toujours d’une offe honorable, quoique limitée à l’Europe et ses marges. Les régions subcentrales profitent d’une « décompression » des régions métropolitaines et cen-trales et de la dynamique low-cost. Les capitales des pays ex-communistes connaissent un rattrapage et sont repolarisées par l’Europe occidentale. Les périphéries touristiques connaissent un important développement mais pèsent peu globalement. Les autres périphéries et les espaces intermédiaires tendent à se marginaliser, victimes de trop faibles densités économiques et démo-graphiques et d’une contraction des services publics aériens. Enfin, si le développement de lignes transversales entre petites villes est une réalité, leur poids est avant tout local. Celles-ci pèsent en effet peu globalement.

<p> </p><p>Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, and Thailand, have all chosen outward-oriented strat-egy over inward-oriented strategy to gain economic growth. This approach was due to the Asian miracles development. Therefore, protectionism had to cave in (Edwards, 1993).</p><p>This thesis aim with the help of income terms of trade and GDP_{CAP to study the relation between trade and growth for these countries mentioned. Therefore, see if income terms of trade would work as an engine of growth for these countries. The purpose is to find a posi-tive correlation between the variables. ITT capture the price and volume effects when trade increases. That is why, ITT is used in this thesis, for the purpose that exports alone cannot explain growth if imports are left out.}</p><p>Time series was conducted with help of a unit root test, co-integration, and Granger causal-ity test. In each test made, the result provided showed of statistically significant values, hence, ITT is of relevance for growth in these countries, during 1980-2006.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

This thesis is involved with exploration of key changes drivers and market phenomena in the Southeast Asia and the development of new conceptual frameworks for business environmental analysis of airlines. The research is constructed under the phenomenology paradigm which adopts a coherentism approach and mainly takes airline industry’s publications, statistics, and executives as units of analysis. Hermeneutic phenomenology, a single-embedded case study, concurrent triangulation mixed method, and grounded theory are all used as methodologies. Methods using document reviews, interviews, and questionnaires are applied to surface the key changes drivers, market phenomena and the perceptions of the importance of changes factors. The collected data are analysed by content analysis, thematic analysis, cognitive mapping analysis, constant comparative analysis and descriptive analysis to classify, generalise and develop into proper forms. The research reveals that ‘market’, ‘competition/strategy’, ‘regulation/policy’, ‘infrastructure/resource’, ‘cooperation’, ‘distribution’, ‘technology, and ‘broad’ factors are discovered as key change drivers. Their different importance levels are measured by occurrences, density, centrality, and tail occurrences as root causes of changes. The characteristics of their interrelationships are based on directional and influential dimensions. There are 16 emerged changes/market phenomena and 11 generalised conceptual frameworks and 3 newly developed frameworks for analysing the airline business environment. The quantitative findings from content analysis are evaluated by inter-coder analysis which achieves kappa coefficient = 0.87 indicating high reliability of the analysis. The qualitative findings are qualified through ten criteria assessment of research quality. The deliverables provide both theoretical and methodological contributions. The research limitations are found in some sources of collected data and findings which are caused by scarce data availability and three types of biases. The recommendations for future research into financial performance, changes’ leading indicators and comparative in-depth study in other ASEAN countries and regions are made.

The principle aim of this thesis is to construct a consumption function for Turkey for policy analysis using the annual State Planning Organisation (SPO) time-series data. This study commences from 1962 and extends until the end of 1994, when a financial crisis occurred in Turkey. It attempts to analyse not only the decline in the private savings rate during the first half of the 1980s, but also the significant rise from 1986 onwards. The thesis starts with an introduction which explodes the main research objectives, considers the existing consumption theories and extentions, records the main data features to be explained, briefly overviews the modelling strategy and discusses the basic considerations of the research and gives the structure of thesis. A literature survey on the theory of consumption is given in Chapter 2. The LifeCycle/ Permanent-Income hypothesis is considered as central to the two mainstream approach. : the Euler approach and the solved-out approach. These approaches are further extended by considering uncertainty and precautionary saving, credit restrictions, saving and leisure. habit or costs of adjustments and the durability of goods, the role of assets and asset prices. financial liberalisation and demographic factors. Finally, comparisons between the two approaches arc made in the conclusion of that chapter. Theory can deliver concepts with permanent relationships in economics, but it should be supported by empirical findings, since theory alone is insufficient to determine the actual economic relationship. Hence, Chapter 3 focuses on theoretical and appl ied modelling issues to construct a theory-consistent, congruent and encompassing consumption function. Congruency implies that the empirical model matches the available evidence in al l measured attributes (i.e., it is consistent with the theory from which it was derived, has unexplained components that arc innovations against available information, has basic parameters that are constant, is data admissible, and where any conditioning variables are weakly exogenous for the parameters of interest). Encompassing denotes that the model of interest can account for the result of rival models of the same phenomena. I also define structure as the set of invariant features of the economic mechanism. A parameter can be structural only if it is invariant for an extension of the sample period (constant), is invariant with respect to changes elsewhere in the economy (regime shifts), and is invariant over extensions of the information set (adding more variables). Chapter 4 examines the small-sample properties of the statistical methods used by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The informativeness of the data is investigated in an unrestricted Vector Auto-regression (VAR) with small-samples of noisy data combined with a high real growth rate and nominal inflation. This is to see how the relative drift dominates in explaining the informativeness of the data. The Monte results are summarised by using response surfaces to relate the biases to sample size. The ratio of standard deviations to standard errors in each equation is also analysed. The strong impacts of the system error variances in these response surfaces indicate the importance of high variances in VA Rs. Furthermore, I found noise, and a function of the signal to noise ratio. and cross-equation correlation had a large impact, but less effect from the relative drift. Chapter 5 presents an overview of the Turkish Economy, particularly during the sample period. by pointing out the lessons to be drawn from the stabilisation experiments and their effect on the private sector saving decision in Turkey. The aim of Chapter 6 is to get nominal housing wealth and housing price data from the available data, such as the nominal private disposable income. nominal private investment in the housing sector and the consumer price index, since housing wealth is claimed to be a major determinant of private savings in Turkey. Chapter 7 aims to reveal the problems of Turkish data by analysing the history of the Turkish a1ional Accounts to construct a data-base for estimating a consumption function for Turkey. GDP by expenditure is constructed from five different sources. Turkish accounting residuals are allocated by applying the linear regression approach. The results show that GDP-by-output is more reliable than the GDP-by-expenditure measure for Turkey. Chapter 8 is devoted to the time series modelling and evidence. Previous findings on consumption for Turkey have been formulated using conventional econometric techniques with a static estimation methodology within the Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH). I adopted the equilibrium correction model (ECM) solved-out consumption function approach and tried to incorporate the effects of age. precautionary behaviour in the case of uncertainty, credit constraints, habits or costs of adjustments. and the durability of goods for developing belier understanding of private sector savings behaviour in Turkey. The modelling is based on the dynamic econometric methodology that involves the estimation of a general unrestricted model (GUM). a co-integration and long-run analysis, and the simplification of the GUM to a parsimonious dynamic model that is deduced by applying a sequential testing procedure. The final model is congruent: It matches the available evidence in all measured attributes and forecasts well, has white noise errors and constant parameters, and encompasses the VAR model equation as well as other specifications in previous models. Moreover, the model has a structural interpretation. The results of the final model reveal strong positive effects of the real interest rate. inflation and inflation uncertainty, a strong negative effect of population aged 15-44, a positive effect after one lag period of the change in the average propensity to consume. which represents the effects of expectations, habits or adjustment costs, in addition to the significant effect of the inverse of per capita Private Disposable Income and the change in housing wealth to income ra1io on the private average propensity to consume in Turkey. These findings offer an explana1ion for the salient features of the Turkish consumption pattern observed from 1he lime series data. These results also provide some policy implications such that inOation control should be strengthened and improved for consumption stabilisation. Furthermore. interest rate policy also has an important role to play in the savings process in Turkey. The research on small-sample properties of 1hc statistical methods by means of Monte Carlo Simulations strengthens the results of the empirical model. These. confirm the poor determination of intercepts in I(I) VARs, and the corresponding advantages of an equilibrium correction model formulation. Furthermore. the insignificance the of irrelevant dynamics should encourage model builders to use a dynamic econometric methodology to develop parsimonious models, such as used for building a consumption model for Turkey in this thesis.

This Master's Thesis deals with the EU competition law enforcement towards undertakings in the energy industry. The attention of the thesis is devoted only to the part of the energy industry, gas and electricity sectors, as the EU decided to liberalize these markets in the mid-1990s with the aim of gradually transform them into the single European energy market, which will be fully open to the competition. The aim of the thesis is to answer research question, what the specifics of the EU competition law enforcement towards undertakings in the energy industry are. The first chapter deals with the fundamental competition law rules, which are analysed in the thesis within the energy industry. These are prohibition of the agreements which have as their object or effect the restriction of competition (regulated in the Art. 101 TFEU) and prohibition of the abuse of dominant position (regulated in the Art. 102 TFEU). Besides these rules, which are enforced ex post, the chapter also deals with the control of merger of undertakings by the Commission as an ex ant competition law enforcement towards notified mergers. The chapter further looks at the main objectives of the competition law and the means the Commission has at its disposal to competition law enforcement. The second chapter briefly describes the...