Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

<p> A fundamental premise of savanna fire ecology is that late dry season fires burn more intensely than early dry season fires. Late dry season fires are considered a major determinant of savanna woody vegetation as they are thought to be more damaging to trees, thus shaping the grass/tree dynamic of savannas. Most savanna fire experiments have adopted the early/late fire convention in their experimental design, based on the pioneering work of Aubr&eacute;ville. Recent research suggests that numerous factors determine fire intensity, and that the widely accepted dichotomous view of fire intensity as driven by early/late seasonal timing greatly oversimplifies a complex phenomenon. In particular, wind direction may be a significant factor in determining fire intensity. </p><p> To determine the factors that influence fire intensity, experimental fires were conducted in the mesic savanna of Mali. Data were collected for fire season, biomass consumed, grass type, scorch height, speed of fire front, fire type, and ambient air conditions for each burn. Multiple regression analyses were used to determine the key factors affecting the fire intensity and severity. Results suggest there are fundamental differences in fire behavior and intensity depending on wind direction relative to the fire. Intensity is not explained by any tested variables in head fires. Intensity of back fires is determined primarily by seasonal timing and, to a lesser extent, grass characteristics. </p><p>

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The dissertation examines three military interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa which took place in the mid and late 1990s in Rwanda, the DRC and Lesotho. These interventions took place despite high expectations of international and regional peace on the part of most analysts after the collapse of cold war in 1989. However, interstate and intrastate conflicts re-emerged with more intensity than ever before, and sub-Saharan Africa proved to be no exception.The study sets out to analyse the motives and/or causes of military interventions in Rwanda in 1990, the DRC in 1996-7, and the DRC military rebellion and the Lesotho intervention in 1998. In analysing these interventions, the study borrows extensively from the work of dominant security theorists of international relations, predominantly realists who conceptualise international relations as a struggle for power and survival in the anarchic world. The purpose of this analysis is fourfold; firstly, to determine the reasons for military interventions and the extent to which these interventions were conducted on humanitarian grounds; secondly, to investigate the degree to which or not intervening countries were spurred by their national interests; thirdly, to assess the roles of international organisations like Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the United Nations, in facilitating these interventions; as well as to evaluate the role of parliaments of intervening countries in authorising or not these military interventions in terms of holding their Executives accountable. In this context, the analysis argues that the intervening countries; Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Chad, Namibia, Rwanda, Sudan, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe appeared to have used intervention as a realist foreign policy tool in the absence of authorisation from the United Nations and its subordinate bodies such as the OAU and SADC. / South Africa

No description available.

Foreign aid aims to improve economic conditions and quality of life in developing countries. The literature on the efficacy of foreign aid to date has been inconclusive; yet there is some evidence that institutional factors may condition the relationship between aid and development. This research focuses on the effects of foreign aid on development, taking into consideration the effects of political institutional factors as intervening in the connection between aid and development. Specifically, this study considers the effects of democracy (political rights and civil liberties) and level of corruption on the relationship between aid and development in sub-Saharan Africa. Development is determined by the Human Development Index, which takes into account gross national income, life expectancy, and education level. My findings indicate that aid is ineffective at promoting development in sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, it is found that democracy, as determined by level of political freedom, is positively associated to development in aid recipient countries. HIV prevalence rate, the location of the country relative to the coastline, and percent of arable land were found to be significant factors affecting development. The level of corruption and political stability do not have a significant effect on development. The study is conducted using a cross-national, longitudinal, statistical model. The impact of foreign aid on development is examined for 45 countries over a fourteen-year period, from 1995 to 2009. The results of the study show that foreign aid has a negative effect on development, yet development is affected by level of democracy, geographical location, percent of arable land, and HIV prevalence rate. Development is higher in countries located on the coastline, with a higher percentage of arable land, a higher level of democracy, and a higher rate of HIV.

Thesis (MDF)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Immigrant remittances have received increasing attention over the last couple of decades, due to the substantial financial inflows into developing countries, as their size and impact on the economies have experienced significant growth over a period of time. This study has investigated the relationship between financial development, specifically for the banking sector, and remittances for eight Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries by utilising panel estimation techniques from 1993-2011. In this particular study, the investigation was focused on the association between remittances and the aggregate level of bank deposits (M2) and domestic credit to the private sector that represented financial development. For M2, the results showed that remittances are negatively correlated with money supply and it was not statistically significant for this equation. However, in terms of domestic credit to the private sector, a positive and significant determinant was found for remittances and financial development in these eight Sub-Saharan countries. It is recommended that policymakers should develop and implement sustainable policies to facilitate uninterrupted flow of remittances, strengthen financial institutions and sound macro-economic policies in order to attract more remittances through the banking sector.

Report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in Finance and Investment Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management Wits Business School University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg, South Africa / The development of transportation infrastructure, including airports, plays a vital role in economic growth in emerging markets. However, government budget allocations for this purpose are often insufficient to realise the full benefits. Project finance and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in particular, have been used to enable private sector participation in the financing of airport development. Airports PPPs have successfully been implemented worldwide, including, to a lesser extent, in emerging markets and Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). There is a lack of literature on the benefits, risks, challenges and opportunities associated with airport PPPs in SSA, which this research aims to address. Case studies of recent airport PPPs in Brazil and India provide an outline of the emerging market context and insight into factors that affected these airport PPPs. In-depth interviews with two representatives of governments in SSA provide a rich view on the perceived benefits, risks, challenges and opportunities associated with airport PPPs in Africa. This research has found that airport PPPs can contribute to airport developments in SSA by enabling the private funding of airport upgrades and expansions. However, governments have an important role to play in providing an enabling environment for private investors by improving investability and implementing clear and practical PPP legislation, aviation policies and economic regulation of airport services. The limited institutional capacity and domain expertise of SSA governments is perceived as a challenge to the implementation of airport PPPs in the region. The low level of air traffic and small number of airports that handle more than one million passengers per annum further limit the opportunities for airport PPPs in SSA, although strong GDP growth provides an encouraging sign. Successful airport PPPs require the participation of private consortia with expertise in airport operations, construction and infrastructure concessions. Financing of airport PPPs is done preferably from domestic sources and development finance can play an important role. There are risks associated with the foreign ownership of key national infrastructure and a reliance on private sector to provide public infrastructure. Lighter forms of PPPs that limit the private sector risk exposure may be more suitable to the low-traffic and high-risk environment in SSA. / MT2017

Doctoral thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy The Graduate School of Business Administration, Wits Business School University of the Witwatersrand June, 2017 / Financial sector development has been projected to play a very significant role in economic growth through the provision of improved quality and quantity of financial services. While financial development–growth nexus has received much attention in the literature, important research gaps still remain largely in areas such as financial–real sector interaction in growth trajectory, threshold effects, finance–volatility–shocks linkages; and legal system–information asymmetry nexus. Knowledge of these relationships is extremely crucial in regulating the financial sector and conducting prudent macroeconomic policy more generally. Using sub–Saharan Africa (SSA) as a case, this thesis consists of four self–contained empirical essays each investigating a critical gap relying on several advanced econometric techniques. In the first essay, we examine the effect on economic growth when financial sector growth outstrips the solvency needs of the real sector. In this context, we find that more than two–thirds of our sampled countries in SSA have experienced at least one episode of excessive credit growth relative to real sector needs. While financial development supports economic growth, the extent to which finance helps growth depends crucially on the simultaneous growth of real and financial sectors. The elasticity of growth to changes in either size of the real sector or financial sector is higher under balanced sectoral growth. We also show that rapid and unbridled credit growth comes at a huge cost to economic growth with consequences stemming from financing of risky and unsustainable investments coupled with superfluous consumption fuelling inflation. However, the pass–through excess finance–economic growth effect via the investment channel is stronger. A good understanding of the optimal level of credit consistent with long run economic growth is needed as existence of an undisturbed equilibrated growth of real and financial sectors is a necessary condition for a smooth economic growth. By introducing a previously missing link, our findings resolve the seemingly conflicting and highly contested results in the finance–growth literature. The second essay investigates whether the impact of finance on growth is conditioned on the initial levels of countries‟ income per capita, human capital and financial development. While financial development is positively and significantly associated with economic growth, our evidence suggests that, in almost all the threshold variables, below a certain estimated threshold, financial sector development is positively and insignificantly related to growth. In other words, below the threshold level of per capita income, human capital and the level of finance, economic growth is largely insensitive to financial development while significantly influencing economic activity for countries above the thresholds. The main conclusion drawn is that higher level of finance drives long run growth and so is the overall level of income and human capital. In the third essay, we disaggregate volatility into its various components in examining the effect of financial development on volatility as well as channels through which finance affects these volatility components. What emerged is that while financial development affects business cycle volatility in a non–linear fashion, its impact on long run fluctuation is imaginary. More specifically, well–developed financial sectors dampen volatility. The findings also revealed that while monetary shocks have large magnifying effect on volatility, their effect in the short run is minuscule. The reverse, however, holds for real shocks. The channels of manifestation shows that financial development dampens (magnifies) the effect of real shocks (monetary shocks) on the components of volatility with the dampening effects consistently larger only in the short run. A key implication emanating from this essay is that, strengthening financial sector supervision and cross–border oversight may be very crucial in examining the right levels of finance and price stability necessary to falter economic fluctuations. In the final essay, the study re–interrogates the role of law in financial development in the light of evolving legal systems in SSA as well as how legal origin explain cross–country differences in economic volatility through its effect on information asymmetry. Our evidence suggests that legal origin significantly explains cross–country differences in financial development and economic volatility. More importantly, relative to civil law, English common law countries and those in Southern Africa have higher financial sector development both in terms of financial activity and banking efficiency on the back of lower volatility. While private credit bureau positively (negatively) affects financial development (economic volatility) with economically large impact for English legal legacy countries, the latter effect is contingent on the form of legal origin suggesting that, the establishment of information sharing offices per se may be insufficient in taming growth vagaries. The effectiveness of law is exceedingly relevant. At the policy front, maintaining more agile and effective legal systems that are responsive to changing financial landscape while forcing economic agents to improve information infrastructure is healthy for both financial sector development and macroeconomic stability. / MT2017

No description available.

Since 1929, the world economy has not encountered any financial crisis as severe as the case of the Great Depression, until 2007 when the fall of stock markets and the collapse of large financial institutions in the United States resulted in a worldwide recession. According to an IMF report, and as a result of the direct impact of the crisis, advanced economies such as those of the United States and Europe are suffering from a systemic banking crisis with economic output expected to contract by over 1 ¾ % in 2009. (Bourdin 2009:2) Although the crisis erupted in the United States, the effects quickly spread to countries worldwide. However, its effects are said to be more devastating for the poorest regions in the world including Sub-Saharan Africa. During the last few years, prior to the crisis, many Sub-Saharan African countries had enjoyed a growth rate of over 5%. This was partly as a result of sound economic policies and increased external support in the form of debt relief and higher inflows from economically powerful countries in the West. However, with the current financial crisis, wealthy nations have been forced to concentrate on sustaining their own economy. As a result, amongst changes like tighter immigration policies, skyrocketing oil prices and food prices, foreign aid is being withdrawn. (ibid 2009:3) According to foreign media reports, donor governments and the G8 are no longer as committed to aid as before the crisis. This research paper examines the evolution of aid to Africa in view of various contexts through a broad historical economic and political economy overview, and finally corroborates these observations with a discourse analysis of a sample of BBC online articles. The research project thus investigates in this last section, the BBC’s representation of poverty and aid in Sub-Saharan Africa before and during the current global economic crisis.