Master of Science / Department of Agricultural Economics / Mykel Taylor / Because Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) contracts take land out of production for at least ten years, when deciding to enroll a parcel of land, a landowner must weigh the opportunity costs of hindering production flexibility against a guaranteed constant annual return. This thesis discusses whether having a CRP contract on a parcel of land in any way effects the value of that parcel. This is accomplished through the use of a hedonic model using data from 1998-2014 on Kansas agricultural land transactions. Results show that unlike in previous literature, while the effect of CRP is typically negative, it can become positive depending on the state of market factors at the time of the transaction.

M.Comm. / VAT is a tax that is based on taxing the value added on successive transactions in the supply chain, accordingly it is a tax designed for the retail or manufacturing industries. South Africa introduced VAT that is similar to that introduced across the world and later refined it. The revisions included the introduction of VAT on banking services. The introduction of VAT to banking is a first in the VAT world but still does not find a cure for the principle dilemma of taxing a bank's value added, under VAT. The study therefore established if banks are treated fairly by investigating: • The three canons of taxation, • The eight principles on which VAT rests, • And the agreement between SARS and the Council of South African Banks. The reason of the above is to propose enhancements or an alternative design that would either increase the accuracy, equity, or simplify the calculation of VAT in the banking sector. The study found that there are several options when introducing VAT to the financial services sector, namely: • zero rate it and the fiscuss looses out on the output VAT, • tax it and increase the cost of borrowing as well as face the problems of determining the value added per transaction or; • exempt it and a practice known as cascading takes place. Neither of these solutions seemed viable although the full taxation option is conceptually the only correct method oftaxation. In most countries the exemption option was taken. The result of exempting interest is that banks have to apportion their input VAT. There are various options open to a bank when calculating the ratio of input VAT to be claimed, yet legislation has only made mention of two. To alleviate this situation the VAT authorities and the Council of South African Banks have agreed upon a methodology to calculate the ratio of input VAT to be reclaimed. This agreement is not compulsory and only applies to areas where the bank does not have an alternative apportionment technique, and in some instances is also flawed in its logic. Consequently banks have the option to apportion input VAT on what they perceive to be a fair basis. The indecision and inequities described above does not result an accurate VAT. The conclusion was that the design is urtiust and the practical calculation, when applied, does not the deliver the correct amount of tax payable. The study introduced a different form of VAT, named the Business Transfer Tax. This tax is an additive form of VAT, based on accounts that relate to interest and trading income. Interest income and trading income would be zero rated under the current VAT, and therefore entitle the bank to claim input tax incurred on expenditure. This would overcome all of the issues not resolved previously.

Does efficient internal investment generally translate into successful external investment activities? In this research we use the internal capital allocation efficiency as a proxy for the efficiency of internal investment, and study whether firms that are internally efficient also make efficient external investment decisions. Our sample consists of multi-segment acquirers that announce acquisitions between 1986 and 2003 (only completed deals are included). We estimate short-term and long-term abnormal performance, excess value and operating performance around mergers in order to measure the success of acquisitions (external investment decisions). Our results indicate that internal capital allocation efficiency is indeed a significant factor in the success of acquisition. Firms that are internally efficient also make efficient external investment decisions. Conversely, internally inefficient firms are also externally inefficient. Thus, our results indicate that internal efficiency can be used as a predictor of the success and efficiency of external investment decisions.

Seminario para optar al título de Ingeniero Comercial,Mención Administración / Hoy en día, la información actualizada es una prioridad para todo ámbito empresarial, donde aquella institución que no está dispuesta a innovar constantemente en aprendizaje, adaptación a las necesidades del cliente y tecnología, va quedando atrás y tiene alta probabilidad de dejar de existir totalmente. Lo mismo ocurre en el ámbito de las instituciones financieras, donde si no adoptan las últimas regulaciones, son multados por las fiscalizadoras; si no tienen buenos sistemas de información, caen en ineficiencias en las operaciones; y si no utilizan los últimos avances en las mediciones de riesgo, tendrán más pérdidas que aquellas instituciones que sí resguardan de manera adecuada sus inversiones. Es por esto que se vuelve relevante el analizar las últimas medidas de riesgo, para que las empresas que manejan distintos portafolios, ya sea de inversión o como cobertura para otros activos financieros, sepan cómo cubrirse de la volatilidad del mercado y así disminuir la posible pérdida frente a malas circunstancias. En este trabajo, se analiza la principal medida de riesgo Value-at-Risk, y se compara con la nueva medida Déficit Esperado, que se está colocando por sobre las demás medidas, al cumplir una serie de propiedades que la vuelven más eficiente y óptima al estimar posibles pérdidas. Se encuentra que la principal diferencia entre ambas medidas, es que el Déficit Esperado calcula un riesgo mayor que el del VaR al utilizar un coeficiente de estimación mayor, por lo que es más conservador; pero que frente a circunstancias normales de mercado, como es el caso del mercado chileno, los activos no son altamente volátiles y el portafolio no tendrá posibles pérdidas mayores a las esperadas, por lo que la estimación del VaR es suficiente como análisis de riesgo. En casos donde el portafolio contenga activos muy volátiles, se recomienda el uso del Déficit Esperado y siempre a un nivel de confianza del 99% en ambas medidas. La estructura del trabajo consiste en: una revisión bibliográfica sobre ambos temas; seguida de las definiciones teóricas y matemáticas de ambas medidas de riesgo, con las críticas al VaR y el por qué no es una medida de riesgo coherente; luego, se realiza una evidencia empírica para analizar estas medidas empíricamente, aplicada a las acciones pertenecientes al IPSA del mercado chileno a través de los últimos tres años; y se termina concluyendo los resultados y la conveniencia de las medidas

M.Comm. / The South African investment management sector is considered well-developed with local fund managers managing approximately ZAR2.1 trillion in assets as at the end of June 2009. These assets grew to approximately ZAR2.4 trillion as at the end of June 2010. The majority of these assets are made up of institutional funds which include retirement funds. Retirement-fund investment savings have a profound impact on the country’s economic welfare not only because it provides income to a large number of aged people in South Africa, but also because it contributes to the country’s overall economic wellbeing. Therefore, one of the biggest challenges within the retirement fund industry is to ensure that retirement-fund savings are invested in an optimal way.

This paper is aimed at understanding a luxury product’s value. The luxury market is a really special market, with different rules and a different logic than other markets. Customers are not only looking for useful or efficient product, but for quality, scarcity and well-valued products. Noriaki Kano and its studies on a product’s characteristics allows us to understand widely the customer’s satisfaction. However, in the luxury market, this satisfaction seems to be more complicated to implement. A Micro economic analysis of the luxury market helps us to understand specificities of the market, and ways to improve a luxury product’s value.

Student Number : 9804032J - PhD thesis - School of Mathematics - Faculty of Science / The focus of this thesis is the spectral structure of second order self-adjoint differential operators on graphs. Various function spaces on graphs are defined and we define, in terms of both differential systems and the afore noted function spaces, boundary value problems on graphs. A boundary value problem on a graph is shown to be spectrally equivalent to a system with separated boundary conditions. An example is provided to illustrate the fact that, for Sturm-Liouville operators on graphs, self-adjointness does not necessarily imply regularity. We also show that since the differential operators considered are self-adjoint the algebraic and geometric eigenvalue multiplicities are equal. Asymptotic bounds for the eigenvalues are found using matrix Pr¨ufer angle methods. Techniques common in the area of elliptic partial differential equations are used to give a variational formulation for boundary value problems on graphs. This enables us to formulate an analogue of Dirichlet-Neumann bracketing for boundary value problems on graphs as well as to establish a min-max principle. This eigenvalue bracketing gives rise to eigenvalue asymptotics and consequently eigenfunction asymptotics. Asymptotic approximations to the Green’s functions of Sturm-Liouville boundary value problems on graphs are obtained. These approximations are used to study the regularized trace of the differential operators associated with these boundary value problems. Inverse spectral problems for Sturm-Liouville boundary value problems on graphs resembling those considered in Halberg and Kramer, A generalization of the trace concept, Duke Math. J. 27 (1960), 607-617, for Sturm-Liouville problems, and Pielichowski, An inverse spectral problem for linear elliptic differential operators, Universitatis Iagellonicae Acta Mathematica XXVII (1988), 239-246, for elliptic boundary value problems, are solved. Boundary estimates for solutions of non-homogeneous boundary value problems on graphs are given. In particular, bounds for the norms of the boundary values of solutions to the non-homogeneous boundary value problem in terms of the norm of the non-homogeneity are obtained and the eigenparameter dependence of these bounds is studied. Inverse nodal problems on graphs are then considered. Eigenfunction and eigenvalue asymptotic approximations are used to provide an asymptotic expression for the spacing of nodal points on each edge of the graph from which the uniqueness of the potential, for given nodal data, is deduced. An explicit formula for the potential in terms of the nodal points and eigenvalues is given.

With the ripples in the financial markets and economic stresses that occur around the world today, it would be beneficial to have some insight into the tools that help investors learn about the riskiness of their portfolios. At what value is one's portfolio in danger of being completely wiped out? We aim to further the understanding of values such as these and give an assessment of some risk measures by investing in an interactive portfolio, as well as estimating the values at risk and expected shortfalls of this portfolio.

With the ripples in the financial markets and economic stresses that occur around the world today, it would be beneficial to have some insight into the tools that help investors learn about the riskiness of their portfolios. At what value is one's portfolio in danger of being completely wiped out? We aim to further the understanding of values such as these and give an assessment of some risk measures by investing in an interactive portfolio, as well as estimating the values at risk and expected shortfalls of this portfolio.

M.Sc., Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011