The construction industry in Uganda is characterized by a high incidence rate of accidents. During the late 1990s, an annual average of 49 accidents were reported in the construction industry while during the period 2001 to 2005, the annual average for this sector was 103 cases. Between 2006 and 2010, more construction accidents were registered with a total of 49 fatalities reported in Kampala metropolitan area alone. This trend has continued up to the present date. Meanwhile, the demand for housing in Uganda exceeds supply resulting into a huge housing deficit. Rapid population growth without matching housing facilities has been cited as the main cause of the housing deficit. Land holding in Uganda is characterized by multiple rights of ownership, and high social costs including land conflicts and violent evictions. Reportedly, these developments are affecting the performance of the housing sector. Given the above background, the aim of this thesis is to propose policies and strategies for improvement of construction safety performance and the housing sector in Uganda. The thesis is based on two broad themes i.e. construction safety performance and housing markets. Although the research themes are unique in their own right, they both address pertinent issues concerning the construction industry in Uganda. Whereas the first theme investigates accidents as events that affect the production of construction infrastructure (including housing), the second theme handles topical issues which affect the demand and supply for housing in Uganda. The study area is Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. In addition to the overview chapter, this thesis contains four research papers. The first two papers relate to theme on construction safety performance whereas the last two papers relate to theme on housing markets. The first paper investigates the causes of construction accidents in Kampala, establishes the prevailing injury and fatality rates, examines spatial patterns in occurrence of accidents and thereafter, proposes strategies of mitigating accidents. The second paper investigates how undiscovered rework (defined as unnecessary effort of redoing a process or activity that is incorrectly implemented the first time) leads to accidents, develops a computer based model for simulating occurrence of accidents on projects and thereafter, proposes strategies of reducing rework related accidents. Evidently, the first paper is explorative investigating construction safety issues at industry level, whereas the second paper is more specific studying safety dynamics at project level. The third paper investigates how the choice of land tenure system affects housing values and thereafter, proposes strategies of mitigating the negative effects of land tenure on the housing market. Finally, the fourth paper examines how population changes affect the housing needs of a city, develops a computer based model for simulating the city population and housing needs, and experiments a plethora of housing policy proposals. Overall, findings of this thesis such as the concept of spatial dependence in occurrence of construction accidents, where accidents at one location were found to be associated with those which occur in the neighborhood; the phenomenon of congestion, defined in this thesis as the existence of high building density amidst many fulltime workers on site, and its significant association with accidents occurrence; and the uniqueness of private mailo land tenure system and the 12% premium it offers in housing values amidst high social costs, are unique contributions to the existing body of knowledge. / <p>ISBN: 978-91-87111-05-01</p><p>QC 20150522</p> / None

This essay is constructed around an empirical relationship which it attempts to interpret in terms of concepts and propositions of economic theory. This interpretation is necessary because the conceptual variables which enter the relationship as well as the method of their empirical measurement and the hypothesis of "causal" relation between them were not originally derived from economics, theoretical or applied. The principal concepts involved are called 'time-span of discretion1 (TSD), 'felt fair pay1 (FFP) and 'capacity1 (C). They are an original discovery, in a field where concepts and theory are scarce, of Elliott Jaques and the team of researchers who subsequently formed the Glacier Institute of Management. These three concepts are the principal elements of the structure for a theory of the evolution of organisational institutions. It is inside these institutions that the reality of work and payis found in present industrial society . . .

Studies on market trader activism in Africa routinely approach traders' claims-making practices from the perspective of the state's regime of signifying order, in relation to which opposition simply seeks to render itself “legible” (Scott 1998). In contrast, this dissertation contends that one must pay close attention to the multiple significations of order and disorder that exist in any social situation and which, through their continuous permeation, fuel transformations of normative plausibilities and, by extension, of the grounds for claims. With a grounding in the theory of the social and political quality of time, I show how the idea of coeval temporalities sensitises observers to the multiple sources of significations of order and disorder – particularly, with regard to subjects' relation to authority – and their creative adaptation in the moment of temporal convergence. The central marketplace of Accra, the capital of Ghana, provides the context for this study. My empirical analysis of this social arena that is closely connected to global flows of people, capital, consumer items and, inevitably, ideas, including those related to order and associated grounds of entitlement adds to the underappreciated theoretical strand the actor-centred process of translation that engenders creative adaptations between converging coeval temporalities.

The literature reveals that, behavioural finance lends some support to the methodologies of both fundamental and technical analysis. Behavioural Finance supports the concept of investment behaviour being grounded in two dimensions, viz., the dimensions of emotion and rationality. The evidence, presented in the literature suggests that fundamental analysis is grounded in the rational investor, while technical analysis is an attempt to model the behavioural side of investing through trend following, charting and the use of indicators (e.g., momentum, stochastic, etc.). Typically large investment houses tend to use both technical and fundamental analysis; technical analysis appears to be used primarily for timing, while fundamental analysis is used to establish intrinsic or fair value of the share under focus – thus making it easy to establish whether the share is cheap or expensive.

This thesis explores a selection of the ways in which an era of high mineral commodity prices - commonly dubbed the 'super-cycle' of the 2000s - is reshaping the map of global commodity markets. It pursues this agenda through three research aims: (1) to recast the relationship between geophysical resource supply, prices, and markets; (2) to examine some of the institutions that channel and benefit from resource wealth; and (3) to 'open the black box' of the commodity price formation process. The thesis pursues this agenda through four substantive papers, each with its own set of research objectives and findings, and primarily uses the example of phosphate as a vehicle for discussion. The first half of the thesis focuses on the production side of commodity markets. It begins by exploring the multidimensional nature of the concept of resource scarcity, both in its geophysical and socioeconomic aspects, by interrogating a prominent inherited conception of natural resource scarcity: 'peak' natural resources, specifically peak phosphorus discourses (chapter 3). The thesis then carries on the research agenda suggested by this initial study by conducting a field research-based case study of the little-known Moroccan state-owned phosphate mining and fertilizer company, OCP Group (chapter 4). It explores the particular type of principal-agent problem in generating and distributing national resource wealth that national extractive companies (NECs) such as OCP face. The second substantive half of the thesis is concerned with global commodity trading and price formation. It constructs an 'anatomy' of global phosphate markets in order to shed light on the phosphate price formation process (chapter 5). Based on this investigation, the thesis argues that despite the opacity of the processes by which phosphate is priced, an apparent lack of a 'benchmark' or reference price is not necessarily as problematic as market theorists might assume. Finally, the thesis takes a macro-level perspective of the relationship between finance and physical commodity trade by examining the role of financial trading in the governance of commodity markets (chapter 6). Overall the thesis distils the following findings. To begin with, a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the concept of resource scarcity puts short-term price movements as indicators of resource availability into perspective while revealing an unforeseen degree of complexity, as well as certain 'blind spots', in the geopolitical and institutional aspects of resource supply and trading. Second, the power of two particular, less-researched types of institutions that channel and benefit from resource wealth - names, national extractive companies and financial investors - is both less great and different in nature than is commonly assumed. Third, for institutional as well as geographic reasons that are specific to different types of commodities, the commodity price formation process is even further from the joint ideals of market transparency and liquidity than is commonly assumed. Finally, insofar as commodity production and trade can be conceived as part of the 'real economy', it cannot succumb to what is widely feared as the hegemony of 'financial logic'.

66 Abstract Title: Regulated markets in financial instruments Author: Michal Petr Supervisor: JUDr. Petr Kotáb, Ph.D. Regulated markets play important role in market economy since they enable effective allocation of capital and thus enforce the economic growth. First charter of the thesis is devoted to trace history of capital markets in order to illustrate their importance and specific function throughout last centuries. We discuss separately their development and evolution in the Czech Republic and in the rest of the world. In particular, we focus on European legislative framework and its significant changes in last decades as it substantially influences inland law. For this purpose we also consider conclusions of the final report of the committee chaired by Alexandre Lamfalussy which affected the European legislative. In the first part of the chapter we also analyze the institution of regulated markets, as determined by current legislation. In the second part we define investment instruments which are traded on the regulated markets. The second part of the thesis discusses in detail causes of regulation and supervision with particular focus on the Czech Republic. We argue inevitability of the supervision and consider its optimal extent. The next part analysis regulated markets in the spirit of its...

Abstract/ Modern Types of Derivatives and its Reflection in the Positive Law The purpose of my thesis is to provide an introduction to modern types of derivatives and analyze its regulation in the positive law of the Czech Republic. The reason for my research is an absence of literature on modern types of derivatives in the Czech language, as well as the fact that the legal nature of derivatives remains still unclear. The thesis is composed of four chapters. Chapter One provides an introduction into derivatives in general. It deals with the notion of derivatives and classifies them as an innovative instrument of the capital market. It also tries to analyze various definitions of derivatives, and although it concludes that there is no ideal, all-encompassing definition of derivatives, existing definitions usually give fairly good idea about what the derivatives are. Chapter One further deals with the regulation of derivatives in the Czech law (importantly, its tries to rebut an opinion that derivatives fall under the regulation of hazardous activities), it focuses on economic function of derivatives (namely hedging and speculation), it explains and justifies the division of derivatives into "classic" and "modern" or "exotic" derivatives, and finally it describes the main types of classic derivatives and its...

Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Ted C. Schroeder / In recent years, the agricultural markets have been subject to increased prices and unusual levels of elevated volatility. One likely driver of this is the mandated ethanol expansion in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Previous research has identified relationships in market prices and variability between the energy and grain markets, but little has been done to evaluate volatility spillover across a broader spectrum of agricultural commodities. Additionally, few studies have assessed causal linkages across market implied volatilities. This research examines implied volatility spillover in futures markets across major agricultural commodities and energies. The analysis also determines the time path and magnitude of volatility translation across the markets and compares the causal relationships between pre-ethanol boom and post-ethanol boom time periods. Granger causality tests are conducted using multivariate and bivariate vector autoregressive modeling techniques, and impulse response functions are employed to obtain time paths of the reactions. Overall, results indicate that strong implied volatility spillover relationships exist between the grain markets and between the live cattle and feeder cattle markets. The analysis also finds that the agricultural markets have evolved from lean hogs being the primary volatility leader in the pre-ethanol boom era to corn being the primary volatility leader in the post-ethanol boom era. Despite a high correlation between crude oil and corn volatilities in the post-ethanol boom time period, the causal linkage between the two commodities’ volatilities may not be as definite as other literature suggests.

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M. Tech. (Marketing, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / Research on apparel store choice and patronage has been widely studied locally and internationally. However, it is still important to understand consumers’ purchase behaviour and to develop appropriate retailing strategy. South Africa is currently experiencing a substantial growth in retail infrastructure especially in townships. Formal retailers are now expanding into township markets. Most of those retailers differentiated themselves from their competitors by developing a corporate identity, inter-alia through their store image. The purpose of the research was to examine apparel store selection criteria amongst black consumers in Soweto. In addition, this research examined the relationship between store satisfaction and loyalty. The literature review focuses on consumer behaviour variables and store image variables influential in store selection. The review was necessary to provide an overview of how consumers decide where, how and when to shop. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 489 respondents who were selected using non-probability convenience sampling. The sample size comprised sportswear apparel shoppers (blacks), both male and female, 18 years and older who patronised three shopping malls, namely Protea Gardens, Southgate, and Jabulani Mall. Data were analysed using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), mean rankings, the Mann Whitney U test, correlation analysis and regression. Six factors were found to be appropriate to capture the dimensions of store selection. These factors were labelled sales assistant, store atmospherics, store appeal (interior/exterior), in-store induced appeals, promotion/brand availability and store accessibility. Furthermore, the data obtained revealed a strong linear relationship between satisfaction and loyalty as well as significant relationship amongst the dimensions of store selection. Regression analysis revealed that promotion/brand availability and store satisfaction are strong predictors of loyalty. The Mann Whitney U test revealed no significant difference in the store choice dimensions between female and male respondents. The recommendations arising from the current study could help retailers understand what motivates shoppers to select one store amongst other stores. The identification of in-store and out-of-store activities that encourage consumers to stay store loyal, are critical to the success of retail businesses. Future studies may be extended on the purchase of other products apart from sportswear items.