This dissertation consists of three essays that apply both economic theory and econometric methods to understand design and dynamics of institutions. In particular, it studies how institutions aggregate information and deal with uncertainty and attempts to derive implications for optimal...

Unchecked anthropogenic climate change has the potential to destroy human lives and wealth on an unprecedented scale. This dissertation analyzes from an economic perspective various public policy options to correct the market failures caused by climate change.The widespread adoption of...

Taking advantage of randomly-assigned federal mineral rights, the first essay establishes the discount that mineral developers place on oil and gas leases with divided ownership. This discount is interpreted as an expectation of reduced profits as a result of transaction costs incurred in...

This dissertation studies one of the newest tools in environmental policy in the developing world context – that of voluntary environmental programmes (VEPs). Developed and promoted in the past few decades by policy practitioners looking to regulate environmental pollution without saddling...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) in South Africa can enhance their role as prime vehicles for the Government to achieve the social objectives of meeting the millennium goals. This can be achieved by ensuring that higher ratios of resources available to the DFIs are...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The increasing global demand for and dependency on oil provides tremendousopportunities for oil-producing countries. Supported by the unprecedentedeconomic growth in developing countries such as China and India, the globaldemand for oil is estimated to increase by 50% from the...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study looks at South Africa and Brazil in a comparative sense to determine how infrastructure development and investment since 1970 to 2002 impacted not only onaggregate GDP but also on social indicators such as gross national income (GNI), infantmortality and literacy...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In a stable economic environment and enabling macro economy, such as Namibia, a small and medium enterprise (SME) sector is vital for the growth and sustainability of the economy. Although several studies have been conducted on SMEs, to the best of the researcher's knowledge,...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: It is a fact that development aid represents the single most important source of external finance for most developing countries. This study sought to answer an important question relating to whether aid has a positive impact on economic growth or not. There is much literature...