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This paper estimates rates of return across the gross wealth distribution in eight European countries. Like differential saving rates, differential rates of return matter for Post Keynesian theory, because they impact the income and wealth distribution and add an explosive element to growth models. We show that differential rates of return matter empirically by merging data on household balance sheets with long-run returns for individual asset categories. We find that (1) the composition of wealth differentiates between three socioeconomic groups: 30% are asset-poor, 65% are middle-class home owners, and the top 5% are business-owning capitalists; (2) rates of return rise across all groups; and (3) rates of return broadly follow a log-shaped function across the distribution, where inequality in the lower half of the distribution is higher than in the upper half. If socioeconomic groups are collapsed into the bottom 95% workers and top 5% capitalists, then rates of return are 5.6% for the former and 7.2% for the latter. / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

This paper estimates rates of return across the gross wealth distribution in eight European countries. Like differential saving rates, differential rates of return matter for Post Keynesian theory, because they impact the income and wealth distribution and add an explosive element to growth models. We show that differential rates of return matter empirically by merging data on household balance sheets with long-run returns for individual asset categories. We find that (1) the composition of wealth differentiates between three socioeconomic groups: 30% are asset-poor, 65% are middle-class home owners, and the top 5% are business-owning capitalists; (2) rates of return rise across all groups; and (3) rates of return broadly follow a log-shaped function across the distribution, where inequality in the lower half of the distribution is higher than in the upper half. If socioeconomic groups are collapsed into the bottom 95% workers and top 5% capitalists, then rates of return are 5.6% for the former and 7.2% for the latter. / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

Thesis (MBA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / Although Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) are not a new phenomenon, they have gained international prominence since 2005 due to their rapid and much publicised growth, as well as government ownership. The objective of this study is to investigate SWFs from the perspective of developing countries and to compare the developing country experience of SWF investment with that of the developed economies of the West. The question that this research report aims to address is whether SWF investment behaviour is more aggressive in developing economies than in advanced economies by being more likely to invest in sensitive sectors of, and to take significant stakes in companies within these sectors in, developing economies? Before this analysis is made, a comprehensive literature study is done consisting of two parts. The first provides an overview of the reasons behind the rise of SWFs and the West‘s discomfort with the phenomenon, focussing on the emergence of state capitalism as a competing socio-political model to free-market democracy. The second part of the literature review gives a broad overview of what constitutes a SWF, its main characteristics and what concerns about SWFs have transpired to date. The researcher uses a narrow definition to differentiate SWFs from other sovereign investor classes, and defines a SWF as a fund: i) owned directly by a sovereign government; ii) managed independently of other state financial institutions; iii) that does not have predominant explicit pension obligations; iv) that invests in a diverse set of financial asset classes in pursuit of commercial returns; and, v) that has made a significant proportion of its publicly-reported investments internationally. The concerns raised in the literature about SWFs as well as the response from the international community and individual recipient countries to these concerns are discussed. In particular, the researcher focuses on the fears expressed by recipient countries that SWFs may invest for non-commercial reasons. To answer the questions raised about SWFs, the researcher assesses the behaviours displayed by these funds by means of an analysis of the transnational transaction data contained in the SWF Institute‘s SWF Transaction Database for the period 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2009. The research results show that SWFs do not appear to target sensitive industries in developing economies more than they would in advanced economies, but it appears that they are willing to gain greater influence and control of the running of the organisations in which they invest if those organisations are based in the developing world.

Despite their natural resources, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and Oman) have failed to live up to their economic potential, primarily due to their dependence on a revenue source with volatile prices and political significance in an unstable region. This thesis argues that the best way to convert oil wealth into consistent long term growth is through diversification, both by investing in foreign assets and by growing domestic sectors that are independent from oil and gas prices. The research further investigates the primary tool these countries have used to do so – sovereign wealth funds – and how their implementation and structures have impacted their effectiveness in achieving economic diversification and growth.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

What is sustainability and how do we measure it? Sustainability could be achieved through sustainable development and much of the literature on sustainable development has taken human well-being to be the object to be sustained. By constructing a very large and extensive National Accounts consistent database, this study develops an original set of UK wealth accounts for 25 years – 1988 to 2012 – to measure UK sustainability. While doing so, this research calculates the monetary value of UK natural capital and human capital which is then added into produced capital to develop a first comprehensive wealth account for the UK. This thesis argues that both wealth accounting approaches - "top-down" and "bottom-up" - are conceptually the same. They only differ empirically because of the methodologies employed to calculate natural capital, human capital and total wealth. This thesis shows how these both approaches can be combined together to measure UK sustainability. This study concludes that since 2007 UK is not on a sustainable path. Despite a positive genuine savings, since 2007 UK wealth has a negative growth rate and wealth per capita is in decline. A positive genuine savings with a fall in wealth per capita shows that UK savings has not been sufficient to compensate for a fall in wealth and population growth. In order to reverse the trend, either UK has to reduce its population growth or it needs to reinvest in its capital asset bases. This thesis argues that an increase in population does not always decrease per capita wealth because an increase in population driven by a skilled work force increases the value of human capital and thus total wealth. This increase in wealth could offset an increase in population keeping per capita wealth intact. Furthermore, for UK, which is not a resource rich country, investment in human capital is needed to increase the rate of wealth growth.

Magister Legum - LLM / The culture of corruption is rooted deeply in Kenya. It may be described as an incurable infectious disease.1 Kenya has been ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. For the last three years, Kenya has scored less than 27 percent in the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International. Corruption persists mainly because those in public office benefit from it and the existing institutions lack both the will and capacity to stop it. It persists despite the legislation, institutions and measures that have been put in place to fight it.3 The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission is the main institution mandated to combat corruption in Kenya. The primary anti-corruption laws are the Public Officer Ethics Act No 4 of 2003, the Leadership and Integrity Act No 18 of 2014, the Public Officer Ethics (Management, Verification and Access to Financial Declaration) Regulations of 2011 and the Kenyan Constitution of 2010. One of the key anti-corruption measures is the system of wealth declarations by public officials established by the Public Officer Ethics Act (POEA). The POEA did not have an easy passage into law. When it was introduced in 2002, Kenya was governed by the Kenya African National Union (KANU), led by President Moi. The regime was characterised by autocratic rule, high levels of politically sanctioned corruption, rapid economic decline and massive accumulation of wealth for the politically connected.4 Unsurprisingly, President Moi did not assent to the enactment of the POEA. The National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) came into power in 2003 and re-commenced the process to pass the POEA into law. This was done with a view to curbing corruption and bolstering donor confidence.5 Regrettably, the NARC administration quickly replicated the corrupt practices of its predecessor, despite being elected on a platform of zero tolerance towards corruption. The new administration, which had promised war on corruption, instead was embracing corruption and denying citizens constitutional reforms.

The constituent concepts of the gospel is not only vital for the correct understanding of the true meaning of Christ, but also for the appropriate meaning and practice of mission to enlarge the church of Christ in his service. The thesis researched the background of the Prosperity Gospel critically in addition to the use of it for missiological purposes to enlarge the church with the luring of poor people with the excessive promises of vast wealth after contributing to the Prosperity Churches generously and substantially from within their poverty. The heart of the research was the analysis of ten sermons by prosperity preachers according to the “open coding” of the “Grounded Theory”, drawing conclusions from the practical analysis of the sermons, instead of the usual research working with the material from a pre-conceived theory. This approach uncovered and displayed the distortion and falsification of the true gospel. The thesis constructed an appropriate benchmark of the authentic gospel against which to measure deviations from the traditional gospel and mission according to this gospel. The dissertation exposed courteously, but deliberately that the Prosperity Gospel was infiltrated with alienated concepts from unscriptural humanism, the “American materialistic dream” and the secular Rogerian psychology with its non-spiritual psychotherapeutic approach, as well as the “profane” preaching of Norman Vincent Peale, comprising “New Thought”, metaphysics, Christian Science, and medical and psychological practices. More serious was the specific “cultic” influences and teachings. Cultic here indicated a system of religious or spiritual beliefs, especially an informal and transient belief system regarded by the traditional churches as misguided, unorthodox, extremist, or even false, and directed by a charismatic, 2 authoritarian leader. Ultimately, the Prosperity Gospel was contaminated with Swedenborgianism, Mesmerism and Unitarianism. The thesis, however, is not negative about the overflowing blessings of God, also regarding temporal prosperity, but the research unearthed the true riches of the gospel of Christ in an exegetical scriptural manner and delineated it in an extensive way – money is indeed “raining from heaven”, but spiritually in a true gospel way, through prayer and in obedience to Christ, depending on faith in God. The norm was “abundance, but not accumulation of riches”. It is sad to have unmasked the fact that some prosperity preachers commanded the churches not to pray anymore, but to command the blessings of God “onto” the “true” believers towards accumulation of vast wealth (cf. “pastor” D O OYEDEPO). The 10 sermons were thoroughly scrutinised and the main problems with the “claiming” of vast wealth according to the gospel brought out in the open – the lack of Christ-centred preaching, the absence of the emphasis of the work of the Holy spirit, the misunderstanding of the “revelation” history, the deficiency of scriptural exegesis and the unscriptural obsession with vast material wealth as a “blessing”. Usually only the prosperity preacher and a few supporters became the “blessed” rich from all the compromised donations of the “masses”. This was followed by a development of the academic discipline of theology, indicating revelation as a historical process, where the gospel moved from survival to justice in the Old Testament, and finally to unconditional love and care according to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. This was situated vis-à-vis an evaluation of the theology of the Prosperity Gospel, portraying the false concept of “faith”. Towards the end of the thesis the perspective of the development of missiology was explained up to the contemporary point and an oversight of the concept of mission of the past century was outlined: It became clear that ecclesiology did not precede missiology, but rather, missiology precedes ecclesiology, because a community of Christians did not first create a church and then developed its mission; a community of Christians participated in God’s mission and thus constituted a church, according to the New Testament. This placed the preaching of the blessings of the gospel and the functioning of God’s mission in true perspective. As poverty is a vital concept regarding the preaching of the Prosperity Gospel the plight of the poor in all its shocking depths were exposed as a problem and a mission task for all the churches of Christ - approximately 15 million people in South Africa live in dire poverty without any hope of alleviation, and 1 billion people in the world live under the poverty datum line. This is a wake-up call for the church of Christ, existing for God’s mission, to face this challenge of mission to the poor. The research closed with a summary of the mission task to the poor. The dissertation concluded with a delineation of possible further topics in this field to be studied. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / M.Th. (Missiology)

This project relates the theme of material consumption in novels of the long eighteenth century to the development of the novel genre. Functioning as more than just a reflection of societal concerns, novels shape perceptions of consumption, which in turn inform our understanding of the novel’s development. These perceptions are informed and complicated by a variety of issues presented in eighteenth-century novels including form, nation and national identity, sexuality, labour, commerce, credit and debt, and, in particular, gender. Chapter one looks at Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones and the use of consumption imagery and metaphors as a way of playing with form and genre adaptation; the novel’s awareness of its own status as consumable commodity relates to the metaphoric and physical consumption within the novel’s plot, establishing a relationship between the problematic generic status of Tom Jones and the theme of physical consumption. Through Tobias Smollett’s The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, chapter two examines eighteenth-century concerns regarding women’s consumption through the largely neglected figure of Tabitha Bramble and her reclamation of the corrupting influence of the foreign through her marriage to Lismahago. More than just a critique of the effects of foreign luxury on British society, I argue that Humphry Clinker makes room for the produce of empire through the union of Tabitha and Lismahago. Chapter three analyses Frances Burney’s novel Camilla in relation to its treatment of the commodifying effects of commerce, particularly shopping; drawing parallels between the experience of shopping in the eighteenth century and the marriage market, specifically as relates to the male gaze, the chapter argues that there is a connection between the novel as commodity, created by Burney in order to create profit, and the commodification of Camilla through the male gaze. Chapter four discusses the ways in which Maria Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent, Ennui, and The Absentee utilise Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations as a roadmap for Irish economic and social development but argues that this is problematised through the absence of politics in Smith, which inadvertently complicates Edgeworth’s message of economic