An Aggregate Examination of the Investment Behaviour

As individuals we are egocentric, consistently intending to enhance our self-interests by satisfying our most demanding needs and accomplishing our targets. After assembling all the missing information and estimating the probabilities that will ease our directions without being too excessive, the decision is being made. Individuals are perceived to be rational investors. Although the theory is teaching us that we all choose based on calculated possibilities and desired outcomes, the observed conduct disproves it. The aim of this paper is to discern how humans behave, react and invest, with the help of an aggregate research based on historical economic contexts and models. By evaluating as well the strategic conduct in uncertain situations will definitely lead to the identification of some patterns in the decision-making process. Because in the end, humans are being distinguished by their pragmatic way of deciding

Volume 18 Number 2

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Accounting, accountability and governance in upstream petroleum contracts: the case of local content sustainability in the Nigerian oil and gas sector.

Local Content is an oil sector governance and sustainability policy that aims at check-mating the dominance of the foreign oil companies in host countries, and encouraging the participation of the local oil firms in the petroleum value-chain. It is a burgeoning concept applied in the upstream petroleum contracts in the developing petro states. This study was conducted to examine the local content accounting, accountability and governance of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and the five major International Oil Companies (IOCs) operating in Nigeria (Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total and Agip). The soft and hard accountability of the two principal actors were determined. The work drew on the Chatham House Guidelines for Good Governance in Emerging Oil and Gas Producers (2013) to derive its conceptual and analytical models. The study used the convergent parallel design and a combination of the three accounting paradigms to draw its conclusions. Thematic analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics including the post hoc Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests with Bonferroni Corrected Alpha, and the logistic regression tests were used. The study also applied the mechanistic content analysis methodology on fifty sustainability reports of the selected IOCs in line with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association (IPIECA) sustainability reporting guidelines. Disclosure index and paired-samples t-test were used to determine the existence and trends in the IOCs local content disclosure practices before and after the enactment of the Nigerias local content law. The study found the local content policy to be an accountabilitybased sustainability driver in the Nigerian petroleum sector. Although the NCDMBs performance was favourable to a large extent, the study found that corruption, fronting, and non-disclosure of the beneficial ownership of some oil firms remained the major challenges of local content in Nigeria. An expectation gap between the Board and the stakeholders on the financial accountability was established. The study found moderate and consistent local content disclosure indices of the periods before and after the Nigerias local content law, but higher volumetric disclosure in the period after the law, signifying likely impact of the local content law on the IOCs voluntary disclosure. It was recommended that the Board should tighten up its regulatory responsibilities and avoid questionable practices. It was also suggested that the Nigerian local content rules should incorporate more incentives such as unringfencing and crossfencing of upstream costs to encourage more investment. The study also suggested that the accounting standard-setting bodies should issue dedicated accounting standards or expand the existing IFRS 8 and IAS 21 to comprehensively address the preparation and presentation of local content information in the annual financial statements

An analysis of the deficiencies impeding regulation of environmental standards in the Nigeran oil and gas industry and possible solutions through legal transplantation from other model regimes.

Oil and gas resource exploitation has hugely contributed to Nigeria's revenue. This is therefore an important contributor to the Nigerian economy. Nigerian oil and gas business has been mainly facilitated by multinational and indigenous oil companies operating in the industry. The study regards them as participants in the industry. It is noteworthy that this study will refer to company and corporation as one and the same entity. It has been observed that some oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria have clearly violated regulatory standards established in the Nigerian environmental regime. It has further been observed that the violations are repeated and persistent in nature. This is interesting considering that the Nigerian environmental regime has provided criminal sanctions (as a regulatory tool) to prohibit a violation of such standards and stipulates penalties that can be imposed for such violations. Moreover, other relevant regulatory administrative enforcement mechanisms have been established in relevant legislation to enforce the standards. Hence, the regime has established enforcement agencies to carry out the enforcement. The persistent violations therefore, show evidence that the Nigerian regime has failed to utilise criminal sanctioning and administrative enforcement to prevent or control violations of environmental standards, hence has been unable to guarantee the required compliance. This study therefore, seeks to identify deficiencies in the regime that have limited its utilisation of these regulatory options to ensure compliance with the standards. Beyond seeking to identify these deficiencies, this study will explore the UK and USA regimes towards identifying aspects of their criminal sanctioning and regulatory enforcement that could inspire a correction to the non-performance of the Nigerian regime

Innovation dynamics in the medical device sector:network of collaborations, knowledge spillovers and regulation

This thesis aims to provide new insights into the evolution of the medical device sector (MedTech). After the analysis of the history of the sector, I examine the key points that in the past 60 years, have led the industry to grow so impressively, and I proceed to an analysis of the actual situation. The scope of the thesis is to understand if what has stimulated the success of the sector at the beginning is still important, and if the introduction of new elements has positively changed the evolution of the sector. The thesis is composed of three works. The first work (chapter 2) is developed in collaboration with Dominique Foray and Michele Pezzoni. I analyze how the network structure of inventors in the Swiss regions can influence regional innovation performance. I aim to contribute to the existing literature related to the debate on the importance of inventors' collocation for the creation of innovation. I claim that an increased degree centrality of MedTech inventors in the regional technological community is positively associated with the number of MedTech patent applications in the focal region. Moreover, the presence of MedTech inventors in the principal component of the regional technological community is positively associated with the number of MedTech patent applications in the region. However, local connections are not enough to promote innovation. In fact, the results show that intense cross-regional linkages of MedTech inventors increase the number of MedTech patent applications in the region. Thus, it is not only important that an inventor be well connected within her region, but also that she be exposed to external knowledge in order to increase her possibility of achieving high performance in MedTech within that region. Finally, I want also to understand how MedTech is open to other technological domains. I find that the average degree centrality and cross-regional linkages of academic inventors and inventors specialized in technologies complementary to MedTech affect regional innovation outcomes. The second work (chapter 3) is developed in collaboration with Dominique Foray. I aim to study the impact of external technologies on the MedTech sector. I start analyzing the literature of knowledge spillovers, and I do a comprehensive review of the extant measures of knowledge spillovers. I argue that the classical measures based on patent backward citations should be carefully interpreted. The reason as to why this type of index needs a prudent interpretation is linked to the characteristics of different technologies in terms of the speed at which other sectors are capable of understanding, absorbing and using them. Therefore, I propose a new formulation of the classical measure of backward citations. The third work (chapter 4) is developed in collaboration with Fabiana Visentin. I aim to understand the effects of the MedTech regulation that entered into force in Europe in 1993. I argue that the regulation has two effects. The first effect is related to the level of radicalness in the innovation. I claim that after the introduction of the regulation, and consequently with the tightening of the requirements to fulfill, firms became more careful and less motivated to propose radical innovations. At the same time, standardization of the requirements over the European countries gives to firms the possibility of widening their market

Sudden unexpected death in infants: a forensic genetic investigation in a South African cohort

Sudden unexpected death in infants (SUDI) is a devastating event, and unfortunately occurs frequently in South Africa. The emerging molecular autopsy has added value to SUDI investigations by revealing genetic variants which contributed to their demise. Motivated by the value of this concept to family members as well as the limited research of SUDI locally, the aim of this study was to explore molecular autopsies in the medico-legal investigation of SUDI cases in South Africa. A 5-year retrospective study of 1.199 SUDI admissions to Salt River Mortuary, Cape Town showed that 110 (9.%) cases were still under investigation, while most had infectious causes of death. An ethical framework was established and used to prospectively recruit 201 SUDI cases from Salt River Mortuary. A pilot quality assessment of DNA from blood, buccal cells and formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue motivated the prospective collection of blood samples. Three variants previously associated with the risk of infections (IL-6 rs1800795.G>C; TNF-α rs1800629.G>A; TLR4 rs4986790.A>G) were genotyped in the sampled cohort. The allele frequency data generated suggested a possible association between each of these variants and an infection-related cause of death in SUDI. Targeted genotyping of candidate variants revealed several pathogenic mutations, including a twin who was homozygous T/T for a founder mutation, GALT rs111033690.C>G/T, causative of galactosaemia (previously undiagnosed). Follow up with the family revealed that the other twin had subsequently demised. Additionally, 43 genes previously associated with cardiac arrhythmias, were sequenced in a subset of cases (n.=.19) and parental samples. Putative pathogenic variants were identified in four infants, and four additional novel variants were found. Lastly, using a hypothesis-free approach, clinical exome sequencing was performed on two cases, which suggested one infant was immune-compromised and the second may have had bronchopulmonary dysplasia. The findings in this study highlight possible new candidate variants to assess in SUDI cases, and has directly contributed to the development of a molecular autopsy which is locally relevant. It is evident that until newborn screening becomes routine and accessible in South Africa, molecular autopsies should include testing for inherited metabolic disorders, as it holds potential to save lives