Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / The object of this study is to examine and analyse the dynamics of central banks. The central bank in any country has a great impact on the economic and monetary issues within its jurisdiction. This research is based on a case study of the economic and monetary crisis in the Republic of Angola resulting from the prolonged phases of civil war. The study will focus in particular on the role of the Banco Nacional de Angola, the central bank of Angola. This bank has a very important role to play in the post-war phase, since it is the only institution capable of inspiring confidence in national and international markets. In this period the country has been closely observed by foreign investors who are believed by this researcher to be the only guarantee for an immediate development of the country. The study points out the main periods of economic crisis, emphasising their main causes and origins, and suggests ways of overcoming these problems on the path to economic recovery from the ravages of the war. Furthermore it examines the manner in which monetary policiesare monitored and implemented within the Angolan framework. Emphasis is given to the fact that the Angolan central bank was highly controlled by the state. This is due to the lack of financial resources at the state's disposal. It is believed by this researcher that the main problem of central banking in Angola is inefficiency in terms service delivery, which has had a significant impact on the quality of its functioning. This study gives some suggestions for possible tools for better performance of the central bank, so that Angola can move towards a better future. This researcher has used qualitative data from secondary sources, exploring and analysing existing information from resources such as journals, reports, legal documents, as well as banking and government sources. This researcher has also collected and analysed national and international laws and legislative policies regarding central banks in general, and the Banco Nacional de Angola in particular.

Mergers and acquisitions remain a constant feature of both the local and international markets, but little is definitely know about what determinants of aggregate merger activityThe aim of this research report is to evaluate the dynamic relationship between a selected number of determinants and aggregate merger activity. We limited our selection of determinants to either macroeconomic or market factors, and limited our acquirers listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.We defined aggregate merger activity using three measures, namely, quarterly deal frequency, quarterly deal value and a relative measure, which took the ratio of deal value over the JSE All Share Index. We utilised Gross Domestic Product, the Repurchase Rate, Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) as our macroeconomic variables. Our market variables were the JSE All Share Index, the All Bond Index and the USD/ZAR Foreign Exchange Rate. Employing the appropriate data transformations, unit root, regression analysis and cointegration tests we were able to statistically test for the hypothesized relationships.Results indicated that only the Repurchase Rate was applicable in explaining the variation in the deal frequency variable, while none of the chosen determinants were significant in explaining the variation in the deal value and relative deal value measures. Overall, we found in all three cases that the fitted regression model did not explain the variation in our aggregate merger measure well.On a long-term equilibrium basis, we found that the All Bond Index and CPI were cointegrated with the deal frequency measure. The deal value measure had a long-term equilibrium relationship with the JSE All Share Index, while the relative deal value measure had a long term equilibrium relationship with the All Bond Index, CPI and PPI / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This thesis presents three distinct chapters that look at different challenges faced by advanced and emerging market economies. Given the issues explored in these chapters, I contribute to several strands of economic literature. Yet, each chapter is motivated by its policy relevance and is embedded in the issues advanced and emerging market countries face. Chapter 1 explores the impact of income inequality on domestic investment in resource-rich countries. Income inequality may affect investment through different mechanisms. For instance, it could distort incentives for domestic investment; high-income inequality may discourage investment in public goods since low-income non-investors may benefit more from the returns on investment. As a result, countries with higher income inequality are expected to contribute less to their domestic investment. To investigate the relationship between income inequality and domestic investment, I use the data for 57 resource-rich countries from 1982-2015. Due to endogenous relationships among variables, I use generalized method-of moments estimators that employ lagged regressors as instruments in the estimation. Using a variety of income inequality measures, I find a negative and significant relationship between these two economic indicators: income inequality and domestic investment. This result could help resource-rich countries achieve higher growth from their resource endowments. The second chapter studies the extent to which worldwide shocks can explain country-specific inflation fluctuations. My benchmark model proxy world shocks with shocks to commodity prices. First, using a factor model of commodity prices, I extract three leading factors characterizing their co-movement. Then, I use the commodity price factors in a structural vector autoregressive model to investigate the fraction of inflation fluctuations that commodity price shocks can explain. My estimation is based on the data for 67 advanced and emerging market economies from 1970-2014. Furthermore, I examine the impact of world shocks on inflation through additional mechanisms, such as changes in the world interest rate and the global economic activity index. Compared to the previous literature, I find the increased importance of world shocks in explaining country-specific inflation fluctuations. This result can guide policymakers in setting the relevant monetary policy to control or prevent inflationary pressures in an economy. Finally, the third chapter studies whether commodity price shocks matter for estimating the output gap. First, I apply the Beveridge and Nelson decomposition method and calculate the share explained by world shocks in the variance decomposition of the output gap. In my analysis, world shocks affect the output gap through commodity price indices and global economic factors. My study includes five advanced and ten emerging market economies from 1980-2018. Then, I investigate whether commodity price shocks can improve the accuracy of this estimation. To do this, I exclude commodity price indices from my model to estimate the output gap. Finally, I use output gaps estimated with and without commodity price indices in an inflation forecasting model to compare the forecast errors of predicted inflation. Using a forecast error test, I find that the estimated output gap using commodity price indices would provide better results in forecasting inflation than other output measures.

Jag har i denna uppsats studerat makroekonomiska faktorers påverkan på antal registrerade aktiebolag och enskilda näringsidkare i Sverige. Syftet har varit att bidra med variabler som ska kunna användas vid prognostisering av antal nyregistreringar av företag. Jag har valt ut de makroekonomiska faktorer som enligt tidigare forskning inom området, visat sig vara de vanligast förekommande. Studien har gjorts med multipel regressionsanalys med kontroll för multikollinearitet, autokorrelation och heteroskedasticitet. Resultatet tyder på att makroekonomiska faktorer som BNP, arbetslöshet och arbetslöshet inklusive fördröjd effekt samt inflation kan ha ett signifikant samband med antal registrerade aktiebolag. Analysen tyder även på att BNP har ett negativt samband med antal registrerade enskilda näringsidkare. Slutsatsen från detta är att det finns en skillnad mellan vad som påverkar antal registrerade aktiebolag och antal registrerade enskilda näringsidkare. Vidare studier behöver göras för att identifiera fler variabler som kan ha ett samband med antal nyregistreringar och då främst registreringar av enskilda näringsidkare. / This study investigates the influence of macroeconomic factors on the number of newly registered limited companies and sole traders in Sweden. The aim has been to contribute with variables that can be used in forecasting the number of new company registrations. I have chosen the macroeconomic factors which, according to previous research in this area, have proved to be the most common. The study has been done with multiple regression analysis and checked for multicollinearity, autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity. The result suggests that macroeconomic factors such as GDP, unemployment, unemployment including delayed effects and inflation can have a significant effect on the number of new registrations for limited companies. The analysis also suggests that GDP has a negative effect on the number of new sole traders. The conclusion of the study is that the factors affecting the number of new limited companies differ from those affecting the number of new sole traders. Further studies are needed in order to establish other variables that can influence the number of new registrations and in particular new registrations for sole traders. / <p>Betyg 170115</p>

This study develops an economic methodology in which,behavioural laws (in the sense of necessary connections between cause and effect) play no essential role. Hayek and Menger are important sources of inspiration. Economic behaviour is explained by way of tendencies rather than laws and insight into economic phenomena is gained by laying bare their "action structure" in which behavioural explanation and behavioural laws play no role. This methodology is applied to the explanation of macroeconomic coordination. The appropriate equilibrium conditions are developed and the relevant tendencies away from or towards equilibrium are identified. The institutions responsible for these tendencies are identified and anarysed. In the light of these findings, pre-Keynesian macroeconomics, the macroeoconomics of Walrasian theory, as well as Keynes's General Theory itself are critically assessed. / Economics and Management Sciences / D. Comm. (Economics)

This paper will demonstrate the principles and important facts of the randomized Kaczmarz algorithm as well as its extended version proposed by Zouzias and Ferris. Through the analysis made by Strohmer and Vershynin as well as Needell, it can be shown that the randomized Kaczmarz method is theoretically applicable in solving over-determined linear systems with or without noise. The extension of the randomized Kaczmarz algorithm further applies to the linear systems with non-unique solutions. In the experiment section of this paper, we compare the accuracies of the algorithms discussed in the paper in terms of making real-world macroeconomic analyses and predictions. The extended randomized Kaczmarz method outperforms both the randomized Kaczmarz method and the randomized Gauss-Seidel method on our data sets.

This dissertation, titled “Flexibility in European Wage Structure and its implications for the European Unemployment,” studies the problem of high rates of unemployment in Europe during the last few decades through the optic of European wage behavior. It examines the European wage structure – within and between European countries – to find out factors that drive wages and thereby, unemployment rates in European countries. A conventional view of European problem of high unemployment argues that European wages are explained by cross-country differences in certain labor market policies and institutions, and that the policies and institutions at the country-level are the principal source of the problem. This dissertation argues instead that European wages are explained by differences in macroeconomic performances and in levels of international competitiveness between countries and also between sectors within the countries, and by certain continental and global level factors, and that a full understanding of the effects of those factors is necessary to explain the European problem of high unemployment. By applying numerical techniques, namely a combination of cluster analysis and discriminant function analysis, this dissertation finds that European wages are driven by factors pointed out by the dissertation, which also explain the high rates of unemployment in Europe over the last few decades. / text

This thesis studies the relative roles of monetary and fiscal policies to achieve the basic macroeconomic objectives of stable prices with sustainable growth in Pakistan. Using data from December 1981 till June 2008, the changes in the monetary policy stance are shown to be capable of affecting the domestic price level and output growth. This thesis also tests the fiscal theory of price determination using quarterly data for the sample period 1977q1-2009q4, by investigating the relationship between the fiscal deficit, debt accumulation and inflation dynamics. The estimates reveal that there exists a fiscal dominant regime for most of the sample period since the fiscal authority is insensitive to monetary policy in the sense that neither taxes nor expenditure react (now or in the future) to the changes in the stock of outstanding government debt. It is also found that changes in the primary deficit exert an effect on aggregate demand which is also evidence of an active fiscal policy regime. This study also explores the indirect channels of fiscal regime by including a monetary, real sector, exchange rate and the consolidated budget deficit variables in three different specifications of vector error correction models and finds the monetary and fiscal variables as the key determinants of inflation in Pakistan. It also suggests a positive and significant relationship between the budget deficit and seigniorage revenues, confirming the monetisation of the fiscal deficit and indirect evidence of the fiscal dominance in the economy. In addition, this thesis employs a SVAR specification of exogenous fiscal policy shocks to observe the relative effectiveness of fiscal multipliers and finds their significant role to affect inflation and output in the economy. Finally this study develops and estimates a small macro-econometric model and then it is used to assess the relative performance of the monetary and fiscal policies in Pakistan. Policy simulations suggest that if Pakistan follows a rule based regime then macroeconomic stability can be improved in terms of the stability of output and inflation.

This study investigates the impact macroeconomic factors have on corporate capital structure in Sweden. We use a panel data analysis of unbalanced data for the sample period, 2005-2014. While previous research has shown that key factors internal to the firm are highly correlated with leverage, such as profitability, asset tangibility and firm size, we add external factors and test for economic growth, inflation, interest rates, corporate tax rates, and exchange rates. Our models do not present any substantial explanatory power for the relationship between the macroeconomic environment and different leverage ratios. This study finds some support for certain indicators, although not consistent across ratios.

This thesis investigates the key determinants of the Non-performing loans (NPLs) comparing two groups of countries from Southeastern and Western Europe, with two different levels of economic development. We try to find empirical evidence and estimate whether the determinants of NPL ratio are different for the middle and high income countries. Applying panel data models for 14 countries overall, and using the regressions of subsampled countries, we analyze the importance of the determinants at the aggregate level. The final results show that all variables considered are significant, except inflation rate under all specifications and FDI when the subsampled dummy variables are used. As for the specifications of the exchange rate determinant, we conclude that the NPL ratio is negatively and significantly influenced in the export dominant middle income economies. An additional non-economic variable, such as the educational index, constructed at the national level, is found to increase the NPL ratio. Concerning the institutional quality index, averaging all six institutional indicators, this determinant does not show a consistent result across different data sample specifications.