This study utilizes a systematic review method to assess literature about the Protestant Christian tradition to enhance theological education in the African context. It explores the development and transformation of African theological education in the period 1910 to 2012. A ‘follow the money trail method of investigation’ was utilized to expose the theological issues that African theologians fundraised for African theological education through the Theological Education Fund/Ecumenical Theological Education of World Council of Churches. These were perceived as crucial in developing an African theological education that promotes the principles of a just and equitable African Christian community. The primary data was extracted by utilizing an approach that demanded searching various media sources which included electronic databases. The search strategy for electronic databases was developed from the key words and phrases of the research question. The search yielded about 10, 821 results and having carefully perused through them, 169 primary sources were included in this study. This was significant as it helped make sense of a large body of literature and was a means of isolating and synthesising the main theories and pragmatics of African theological education. The insights gained from this study are significant as a contribution to the current search for a vision of African theological education that promotes the principles of a just and equitable African Christian community in the twenty-first century. The study makes two unique contributions in the search and vision for African theological education. The contribution lies in constructing an example of an African pedagogy of community of life which is based on education for life-giving. This pedagogy is based on the Bemba understanding of insaka which is a process of life-giving-learning methodology. This theme is as relevant for global Christianity as it is to the Bemba people in their quest for life-giving theological education. Another critical contribution lies in the understanding that through Africanization, African theological education has been in a process of acquiring its own unique character or theological identity. African theological education has shifted from a merely dogmatic orientation to praxis orientation. This is based on a theological pedagogy that recognises that doing theological education involves critical engagement in a missional process of liberation—of seeking fullness of life in its interpenetrative dimensions as spiritual-material starting with the least of the community, but embracing the whole of God’s creation. To achieve this, theological education has to cut across denominational allegiances, privileging of academic disciplines, and embracing the insaka pedagogy of life through ecumenical and trans-disciplinary approaches. The viability of African theological education resides in its critical engagement with the concrete societal challenges of the African peoples. As a result, this study argues that creating a just and equitable African Christian community to a large extent depends on embracing the life-giving pedagogy as an imperative in African theological education. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.

This dissertation aims to problematize the concept (and proposed policy) of "debt sustainability", particularly in relation to those countries classified as "low-income", by attempting to map the logic behind what is presented as neutral, technical fact (i.e., "best practice") and seeing what work this logic does, i.e., what its effects are. Debt sustainability is not a free-floating concept, but one that is operationalized in policy. This means that the outcomes of employing a debt sustainability framework for low-income countries may have tangible consequences; in this way, and most importantly, debt sustainability may also have consequences regarding prospects for debt reliefand for the way countries and organizations make lending and borrowing decisions. The way the International Monetary Fund (IMF) conceptualizes and presents indebtedness, poverty, governance, and (sustainable) "development" dialectically reproduces a discourse around debt that both limits (depoliticizes) and opens possibilities for debt cancellation and fundamental change fundamental change in the IMF's role and function, in the Fund's relations with countries of the global south, and in the budgetary and other constraints those countries face in processes of "indebtedness" and "development". / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2005.

The objective of this dissertation is to evaluate the current marketing practices as viewed by students at the University of Natal - Pietermaritzburg (UNP) for self-funded courses. Data was collected from a sample size of 221, of which 196 student opinions were established. A sample size of 196, represented 38,7 % of the total population, and can be considered as an adequate sample size. This also confirms that the sample size is a true representation of the population. The instrument used for the research was a structured questionnaire, formulated by reviewing the literature in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3. The analysis of the data was done using a software package called SPSS vII,S. The interpretation of these results was illustrated with the use of bar graphs and pie charts, with a written narration for each question of the questionnaire. The analysis of the results reflects that students feel very positive about the University's current marketing practices. All departments were rated as at least "good" by the students in terms of reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles. Recommendations were formulated as the result of the findings, and challenges facing the University of Natal were presented. / Thesis (M.B.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

Kosowski, Timmermann, Wermers, and White (2006) find that certain growth-oriented fund managers have substantial skill but do not stipulate the particular skills that they possess. I use novel style timing models to examine in detail the timing skills of 3,181 US equity mutual funds classified as having a growth investment objective by Standard & Poor’s, over the period from 1993 to 2006. To control for idiosyncratic variation in mutual fund returns, the bootstrap method of Kosowski et al. is used to analyze the significance of alpha and timing coefficient estimates. To exclude the possibility that the observed timing ability is due to good luck, synthetic funds are examined as in Busse (1999). The results indicate that growth-oriented fund managers who earn abnormal returns demonstrate substantial growth timing skill, i.e. successful timing activity across the value/growth continuum. This observed growth timing ability accounts for at least 45% of abnormal returns and is persistent; the top 10% of funds which demonstrate growth timing ability in the past three years also demonstrate the best growth timing ability in the following year. Successful growth timing is confined to those managers who invest primarily in growth stocks. However, there is little evidence of successful market timing (i.e. forecasting future market states and weighting equity exposure accordingly), size timing (i.e. adjusting exposure between small and large capitalization stocks) or momentum timing (i.e. switching between momentum investing and contrarian investing strategies). The models employed clearly distinguish between growth timing and market timing skills, thereby avoiding a common misidentification problem.

Lietuvos pensijų fondų formavimo bei jų veiklos vertinimas užsienio šalių kontekste yra svarbus analizuojant Lietuvos pensijų sistemos reformą. Darbo objektu buvo pasirinktas – pensijų fondas, kuris sklandžiai įgyvendinant pensijų reformą turi tapti svarbiu socialinio draudimo elementu. Magistrinio darbo tikslas buvo vertinti pensijų fondų formavimą ir pensijų fondų veiklą Lietuvoje ir užsienio šalyse. Nors daugiausia dėmesio buvo skirta Lietuvai, bet Lietuvos pensijų fondų formavimas bei veikimas visame darbe buvo siejamas ir lyginamas su užsienio šalių patirtimi. Magistrinis darbas patvirtina, kad pensijų fondai yra galimybė gauti didesnes pensijines pajamas. Svarbus žodis prieš tai buvusiame sakinyje yra „galimybė“, nes nei vienas pensijų fondas negarantuoja sėkmingos investicijos. Tačiau žinant demografines tendencijas (senstanti visuomenė) ir pasaulio šalių pensijų fondų veiklos rezultatus, pensijų fondai yra optimalus problemos sprendimas. Magistrinio darbo rezultatai rodo, kad pensijų fondų formavimą gali skatinti skirtingos priežastys, bet jų finansavimas yra panašus – pensijų fondai gauna fiksuotą darbuotojo pajamų dalį. Gerai diversifikuotas pensijų fondų portfelis ir investavimo išmanymas sudaro prielaidas gauti norimą investicinį prieaugį, kuris suteikia galimybę gauti didesnes pajamas senatvėje. / Evaluation of Lithuanian pension funds‘ formation and operating in context of foreign countries is important for analysing reform of Lithuanian pension system. Chosen object of the paper is pension fund, which will become important part of social insurance, if pension reform is fulfilled smoothly. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate formation and operating of pension funds in Lithuania and foreign countries. Though biggest attention was brought to Lithuania, but formation and operating of Lithuanian pension funds was associated and compared with experience of foreign countries. Master paper confirmed that pension funds are possibility to get bigger pension incomes. Important word in previous sentence is ’possibility’, as no pension fund guaranties successful investment. However demographical tendencies and operating results of other countries, pension funds are optimal solution to mentioned problems. Results of master paper show that formation of pension funs may be influenced by different causes, but financing of them is similar – pension funds get fixed portion from employees’ salary. Well-diversified pension fund portfolio and good investment skills is strong background to get desirable investment return, which will give opportunity to get bigger incomes after retirement.

No description available.

In this paper, we test the hypothesis that the introduction of Taiwan Top 50 Tracker Fund (TTT) would impact the market liquidity of its underlying stocks. We address this issue by adopting several volume-based and price-based liquidity measures to present the multi-dimension of liquidity. Our empirical results show that after the introduction of TTT, the standardized trading volume decreases and the market becomes more volatile for the underlying stocks. Both the quoted spread and the effective spread widen in the post-introduction period. These findings suggest deterioration of market liquidity for the underlying stocks. We then further follow Lin et al. (1995) to decompose the effective spread to examine the changes in spread components. We find a significant increase in the adverse selection component in contrast to a slight decline in the order processing cost. Overall, we find evidence that the liquidity of the underlying stocks tends to deteriorate after the introduction of TTT primarily because there is an increase in the cost of informed trading. Our finding is consist with the prediction of Subrahmanyam (1991) where the migration of liquidity traders to the basket securities raises the portion of informed traders in the market of underlying stocks and tends to increase the adverse selection risk and reduce the market liquidity of the underlying stocks.

Until 1980 in Australia, occupational superannuation had played only a peripheral role in securing retirement savings for the workforce at large with less than 40% of all employees at this time receiving superannuation benefits. By the time the twenty-first century began, however, 91% of all Australian employees and 81% of all workers were covered by superannuation, and, by 2007, total superannuation assets had reached $1.2 trillion with superannuation fund balances the largest financial asset held by households. This substantial growth in superannuation coverage did not occur as a result of free market forces operating between producers and consumers in the superannuation industry. Rather, this increase was found to be directly related to the level of intervention in the industry by both the Labor and Coalition Governments throughout the last three decades. / The rationale provided by these Governments highlighted the public interest necessity of ensuring that there was an adequate coverage, level and rate of growth of retirement savings. Criticisms of this rationale have, however, continued to grow unabated. These concerns focus on the failure of the regulatory regime changes introduced to actually achieve their public-interest rationales in terms of improving Australia’s national savings rates or to produce effective governance mechanisms to protect the security of the worker-owned trillion-dollar asset pool now under investment. / The primary objective of this thesis was to investigate these opposing claims (within the framework of the public interest and private interest theories of regulation), via the combination of a detailed literature review and a statistical analysis which utilised factor analysis, and logistic and multiple regression modelling techniques. / This combined analysis suggested three primary conclusions: / (1) the origins of the regulatory regime change process needed to be considered as a political game with the simultaneously experienced detriments of key interest groups resulting in a groundswell of pro-regulatory reform activity which sought to obtain relief from “suffering”. The private interest prediction that governments/politicians in electoral democracies were concerned about finding a support coalition to promote their re-election chances was, therefore, confirmed; / (2) in comparison, there was less than convincing evidence to support the public interest claims of bothgovernments in relation to the origins of the regime change process; and / (3) as opposed to these origins-related findings, the regulatory impact story analysis of the review period confirmed that the primary “winner” of the regulatory regime changes was the fund manager group in general and the large, incumbent, life office entities in particular with statistically significant improvements in fund manager “detriments” (e.g. in terms of the total superannuation assets held within the statutory funds of life offices variable). While the government/politicians group was also a “winner” given the significant increases in the “bureaucratic empire building” variable, it was a significant “loser” in terms of the downturn in the public interest variables of household savings rates, net personal savings rates and voluntary superannuation contributions. The ACTU, the employers and workers in general were also all “losers” in that: union membership rates were characterised by downturns; employers do not appear to have been able to “offset” increased occupational superannuation benefits with reductions in wages and/or employment levels; and there was no significant improvement in either of the fund member indicators (i.e. in terms of the fund member welfare index or their real rate of returns). Thus, the private interest prediction that, in terms of regulatory impacts/outcomes, there would be significant wealth transfers away from fund members primarily to the fund managers was confirmed. / These findings raise implications for the ongoing development of regulation in this area which will need further consideration. For example, is it likely that future, private interest-based regulatory changes will be imposed on the occupational superannuation industry which will lead to further detriments to fund members and increasing wealth transfers to the fund managers? Alternatively, is it likely that, at some point, a regulatory backlash will occur which could lead to more public interest outcomes? Or, is it possible that the interest groups studied might “mutate” or change to adapt to future circumstances which could then, in some future period, change the “winning” and “losing” profiles highlighted in this research? Also of interest is whether these findings, which were performed within a relatively unique set of political circumstances, are robust to alternative settings or time periods? These issues are ideal topics for future research projects.

Thesis (M.A.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Title from file title page. Carrie L. Manning, committee chair; Scott E. Graves, Charles R. Hankla, committee members. Electronic text (49 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed Apr. 3, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-49).

Thesis (M.S.)--Purdue University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-68). Also available online (PDF file) by a subscription to the set or by purchasing the individual file.