This dissertation was prepared by Jasmin Gröschl and is a collection of five self-contained empirical essays. They aim at contributing to the understanding of non-standard determinants of trade and migration: historical and cultural characteristics in the United States (Chapter 1),...

This volume includes five self-contained chapters in the fields of public debt and fiscal transfer schemes. After an introduction to the topic, chapter 2 shows that the institutional setting of fiscal policy making needs to be considered when assessing the sustainability of fiscal policy. Using...

The rise of a crisis-prone banking sector and its political power has received significant attention following the most recent financial crisis. The crisis sparked a growing interest in understanding how and why we have created a world of large, unstable banks. Excessive banking activity arose...

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...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This present study investigates the directional link between stock market development and economic growth in Zambia for the period 2002-2009, using quarterly data. While there is numerous empirical research conducted on this topic, none of it constitutes an in-depth study of...