Temporary Employment Services (Labour Brokers) in South Africa and Namibia

South Africa currently allows labour broking although this area of commerce is problematic. The trade union movement, government and organised business are presently debating the future regulation of this industry. Namibia has experimented with, and failed, to place a legislative ban on labour broking. The Supreme Court of Appeal of Namibia considered International Labour Organisation conventions and provisions of their Constitution before concluding that labour broking should be regulated but not prohibited. In this article it is argued that South African policy makers can gain valuable insights from the Namibian experience. It is submitted that it would be appropriate for Parliament to take cognisance of international and foreign principles and to accept amendments that would provide for stricter regulation for labour broking, rather than placing an outright ban on this economic activity

Narratives and Performance - The Case of Stock-broking

The performance of individual stockbrokers differs. This paper aims at explaining these differences, or at least at making some sense of them. In a study of fourteen stockbrokers, the high performing brokers described their working life in a systematically different way, compared to the low performing brokers. The high and low performing brokers gave fundamentally different accounts of what, from an outsider’s viewpoint, seemed to be very similar work and working conditions. The brokers’ different accounts are interpreted and reconstructed into two opposing narratives of stockbrokers’ world of working. In an ideal typical sense these two narratives explain, or at least make sense of, the stockbrokers’ different levels of performance.narratives; performance; stock-broking; phenomenography; competence; work; interaction; alienation

"Intra-day Seasonality in Activities of the Foreign Exchange Markets: Evidence from the Electronic Broking System"

This paper examines intra-day patterns of the exchange rate behavior, using the "firm" bid-ask quotes and transactions of USD-JPY (Alec: The EBS notations define the base currency as the first currency in the name of the currency pair. Note that trading in EBS is done in millions of the base currency) and Euro-USD pairs recorded in the electronic broking system of the spot foreign exchange markets. The U-shape of intra-day activities is confirmed for Tokyo and London participants, but not for New York participants. Activities (deals and price changes) do not increase toward the end of business hours in the New York market, even on Fridays (ahead of weekend hours of non-trading). It is generally observed a negative correlation between the number of deals and the width of bid-ask spread during business hours, but in the first business minutes of Tokyo, bid-ask spread and activities have high correlation. It is also found that the concentration of transaction during overlapping business hours between Tokyo and London markets (London and New York markets) may arise from heterogeneous expectations among participants from different regions, that is waking up of participants of the next region in time line of the day.

Intra-day Seasonality in Activities of the Foreign Exchange Markets: Evidence from the Electronic Broking System (Subsequently published in "Journal of the Japanese and International Economies", Volume 20, Issue 4, December 2006, pp. 637-664. )

This paper examines intra-day patterns of the exchange rate behavior, using the "firm" bid-ask quotes and transactions of USD-JPY (Alec: The EBS notations define the base currency as the first currency in the name of the currency pair. Note that trading in EBS is done in millions of the base currency) and Euro-USD pairs recorded in the electronic broking system of the spot foreign exchange markets. The U-shape of intra-day activities is confirmed for Tokyo and London participants, but not for New York participants. Activities (deals and price changes) do not increase toward the end of business hours in the New York market, even on Fridays (ahead of weekend hours of non-trading). It is generally observed a negative correlation between the number of deals and the width of bid-ask spread during business hours, but in the first business minutes of Tokyo, bid-ask spread and activities have high correlation. It is also found that the concentration of transaction during overlapping business hours between Tokyo and London markets (London and New York markets) may arise from heterogeneous expectations among participants from different regions, that is waking up of participants of the next region in time line of the day.

Irish Results of the BIS Foreign Exchange and Over-the-Counter Derivatives Survey 2007

The survey results for Ireland show a large increase in turnover in foreign exchange instruments, driven mostly by growth in foreign exchange swaps.