This study investigates the theology of wealth, with reference to the parables of Jesus, in dialogue with recent Irish economic history. Poverty is commonly seen as a societal problem, but in the teaching of Jesus, especially in his parables, the status of the wealthy is called into question. This thesis explores what it means to be followers of Jesus in societies where historically high levels of wealth and comfort are widespread. It begins by considering that societal context, naming neoliberalism as the complex of economic, political, and cultural factors that combine to generate wealth. The parables of Jesus are introduced as a collection of narratives which puncture the philosophical assumptions at work in neoliberalism. Reading them after the twentieth century Swiss theologian Karl Barth, the parables are found to be apocalyptic interruptions which reorientate the reader towards the reign of God. With these two strands – neoliberalism and the parables – in play, the thesis reconsiders Ireland's recent economic history. It is argued that the ethical significance of the “Celtic Tiger” boom and the subsequent 2008 crash is best accessed not via the language of economics but through narratives. The re-telling of the events of the crash and its aftermath through parables exposes how markets are embedded in thick cultural, historical, and political settings and how simple and settled statistical accounts can miss much of ethical significance. The decisive chapter takes up the constructive task. Building on this re-described account of a wealthy society, it proposes that the appropriate response for Christians to the problem of wealth is to turn to worship as a reparative therapy that forms congregations in practices and ways-of-seeing that run counter to the normative perceptions of neoliberalism. This is achieved by means of a robust engagement with the work of the contemporary moral theologian, William Cavanaugh. A final chapter underlines the original contribution of the project, sketches some future areas of research, and proposes that lament is the initial stance that results from this study.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in fulfilment of the conditions for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. April 2016. / The global financial crisis of 2007–2008 changed the way the world thinks about economics as a discipline and brought about awareness of how economics is taught at universities. In view of an on-going global debate about the economics curriculum and its teaching, this doctoral study places the South African context within the global higher education sphere and explores how introductory economics is taught in first-year at a South African university. This study explored the teaching of Economics 1 at a mainstream, globally-ranked public university in South Africa with very similar content and structure to the Economics 1 curriculum in the West. The main aim of the doctoral study was to investigate the qualitatively different ways in which university teachers (lecturers and tutors) teaching Economics 1 at a South African university conceive of, experience and understand their teaching and tutoring roles. On the basis of this, three research questions were asked: (I) What are the qualitatively different ways in which lecturers at ‘the University’ understand teaching Economics 1?; (II) What are the qualitatively different ways tutors at ‘the University’ understand teaching Economics 1?; and (III) What is/are the implication(s) for students’ learning of teaching Economics 1 within the current setting at ‘the University’ through the lenses of relevant conceptual frameworks and the outcome of the empirical study? Teaching in higher education, the disciplinary context of economics’ undergraduate teaching and its implications for students’ learning underpinned the choice of the literature, the three conceptual frameworks and the research methodology. By asking the three research questions above to guide the research process, the empirical study used a qualitative methodology – phenomenography – that aims to explore the qualitatively different ways in which a group of people experience a specific phenomenon, in this case teaching Economics 1 in higher education. On the basis of phenomenography as a conceptual framework in itself, this doctoral study further analysed the empirical data using two conceptual frameworks - a four-context framework for teaching in higher education and the concept of semantic gravity, relating to segmented and cumulative learning, as conceptual lenses. Two sets of conceptions of teaching emerged on the basis of answering the first two research questions. A careful, comparative analysis of these two sets (lecturers’ and tutors’ sets of conceptions of teaching) led to six conceptions of teaching Economics 1 in higher education as follows: (I) team collaboration to implement the economics curriculum; (II) having a thorough knowledge of the content; (III) implementing the curriculum in order for students to pass assessment; (IV) helping students learn key economics concepts and representations to facilitate learning; (V) engaging students through their real-life economics context to acquire economic knowledge; and (VI) helping students think like economists. The first three are characterised as being teacher-centred and the later three as student-centred. Applying the concept of semantic gravity (Maton, 2009), I argue that the latter two more complete conceptions of teaching imply cumulative learning in which students are able to acquire higher-order principles whereby they are able to apply the knowledge acquired through the teaching of Economics 1 in new contexts. The first four conceptions are seen as favouring segmented learning. According to this analysis, the fourth conception, although characterized as student oriented, should be regarded as favouring segmented learning which is not in line with the aims of higher education. As for the four-context model of teaching in higher education, the analysis from the empirical data showed that there is a very strong connection between the pedagogical and disciplinary contexts in relation to the six conceptions of teaching emerging from the analysis, though the disciplinary context is stronger than the pedagogical context. In summary, three implications can be drawn from this doctoral study on the basis of the empirical data, literature and conceptual frameworks as the basis for improving undergraduate economics education. These are as follows: (1) the need to make the economics curriculum aligned with real-life contexts of undergraduate students; (2) the need to rethink the economics curriculum in light of the current global debates within the discipline of economics; and (3) the need to bring pedagogical development into the team. Key words/phrases: Conceptions of Teaching; Teaching in Higher Education; Higher Education Research; Undergraduate Economics Education; and Phenomenography

This thesis aims to advance our understanding of banking in the post-crisis era. It makes three distinct contributions to the literature on banking. The first chapter examines whether "too-big-to-fail" (TBTF) factors affect estimates of scale economies for large banks. Based on a standard model of bank production that does not control for any TBTF factors, we find evidence of scale economies for our sample of large banks. However, once we control for TBTF factors, we instead find evidence of constant returns to scale. These results suggest that estimates of scale economies for large banks are affected by TBTF factors. The second chapter examines the impact of forbearance lending on firm dynamics and performance in Europe since the sovereign debt crisis. We develop a quantitative model, which features endogenous forbearance lending and endogenous firm defaults, as well as information asymmetry faced by the lender. We fit the model to key Euro Area firm statistics over the period 2011 to 2014. We show that in the absence of forbearance lending, the average firm sales growth, investment and productivity are higher than in the benchmark scenario with forbearance lending. These results suggest that forbearance lending practices have contributed to the recent economic stagnation across the Euro Area. The third chapter introduces a novel way to identify the causal effect of bank capital on risk-taking. We use provisions for misconduct issues as an instrument for bank capital. We show that misconduct provisions are an appropriate instrument due to their strong and negative impact on bank capital, and are otherwise unrelated to asset risk-taking. Our main finding is subsequently that a negative shock to bank capital leads to an increase in risk-taking, as measured by detailed information on mortgage underwriting standards.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 19, 2010). Thesis advisor: Dr. Charles Davis. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (MDF)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In light of the 2007/2008 global financial crisis, as well as pre- and post-crisis banking reform, this research investigated changes in competitive behaviour among banks in Sub-Saharan Africa, thus adding new insights to the current debate. The main findings from the empirical test were as expected and suggested conditions of monopolistic competition. In order to validate sufficient conditions for observing competition, an empirical test conducted to measure a state of general market equilibrium, had the expected outcome. Specifically, the research methodology applied the Panzar-Rosse model, a non-structural approach in the manner of the New Empirical Industrial Organisation. In the first instance, the model derived a continuous measure of a static H-statistic with a value of 0.57, using 481 bank-year observations from an unbalanced panel of 83 banks from six countries over the period 2008–2013. The H-statistic measured the degree of competition by explaining how changes in market power or unit factor input prices of funds, labour and capital expenditure influenced the pricing output of banks. A computed E-statistic, which was statistically equivalent to zero, validated the significance of the H-statistic, as the result implied that, in equilibrium, market power of a bank does not influence its returns. Overall, the findings were consistent with the pricing and strategy theories, such as contestable markets theory, which indicates that pricing power is associated with neither industry structure nor concentration, but instead with changes in input prices. In addition, the findings were consistent with relevant prior studies, which concluded that banking systems in parts of Europe, Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa were monopolistic, and that banking reform influenced market discipline.

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Economics, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Understanding characteristics of unemployment can contribute to labour market policies. Therefore this thesis investigates gender and ethnic unemployment during the recent 2008-2010 recession and spatial autocorrelation of unemployment using multivariate analysis, decomposition techniques, and panel SAR model which is innovatively adopted to examine the mechanism of causing spatial autocorrelation.

M.Comm. (Financial Management) / The costs of the 2007- 09 financial crises on global economies have resulted in new central bank rules to strengthen financial institutions. The question of whether there were any significant differences in capital structures between banks who were liquid and those who were liquidity constrained in the 2007– 2009 global financial crisis, still needs to be answered. Theoretical models on corporate failure partly explain how bank capital management impacts on whether a bank fails or not. This study investigates the differences in capital ratios between banks who were liquidity- stressed and those who were liquid. A comparative analysis of selected banking capital ratios were done followed by a discriminant analysis to determine if there is a relationship between the capital structures of liquid and liquidity- stressed banks. It was found that there were differences in capital structures of liquid and liquidity- stressed banks but capital ratios on their own, could not be used as early warning sign for bank failure.

This dissertation investigates the effects of the financial crisis on the South African economy. In order to do this, an index which describes the financial conditions of the South African economy is constructed and computed. The index indicates that domestic South African financial conditions have deteriorated substantially during the period under study and so the study investigates how this has impacted on the country’s economic growth. A VAR model with South African variables is specified and used to assess the quantitative effects of the financial crisis on South African real GDP growth. Results suggest that the South African economy was not significantly affected by the crisis, but economic growth was slowed down and may still grow substantially slower in the next few years due to the financial crisis. These results corroborate the theoretical predictions and are also supported by previous studies.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / The use of leading indicators provides a valuable method to predict changes in macro-economic variables. However, the accuracy of the various models using leading indicators is a topic of constant debate. This study aimed to identify whether leading indicator models predicting residential house price changes performed as well during the recent global financial crisis (fourth quarter 2007 to second quarter 2012) as during the period directly before the crisis. Several potential drivers of the South African property market were identified with the help of previous studies on this topic. Following that, a quantitative analysis was done and single leading indicator models were built using regression analysis to evaluate the importance of each independent variable. This information was used to create a composite leading index for the South African housing market. The accuracy of these models were then compared to predict the changes in house prices during the period preceding the recent global economic crisis.It was found that the ability of these leading indicator models to predict house price changes during the recent global economic crisis decreased significantly.