Foreign portfolio investments, exchange rates and capital openness : a panel data approach

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of real exchange rate and capital openness on foreign portfolio investments, using a panel of nine African countries, after the global financial crisis in the period 2009 -2016. Design/Methodology/Approach: We adopted a panel data approach, and more specifically data was analysed using the Fixed Effects model. The economic data was sourced from the World Bank database of development indicators, while we used Chinn and Ito’s database for capital openness. Findings: Building on from the international finance and portfolio behaviour theories, the results show that real exchange rates, capital openness and the rate of inflation have a negative relationship with FPI inflows. On the contrary, the lag of FPI, institutional quality, real economic growth rate and stock market development attract inward FPI, as portrayed in the positive relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Practical Implications: In accordance with these findings, we find that, host countries’ governments that adopted fiscal and monetary policies can ensure macroeconomic stability, and a prudently managed exchange rate through incentivising exports and discouraging imports into the host country, to attract inward FPI flows. Originality/Value: The study confirms the theoretical and empirical underpinnings that there is a negative relationship between foreign portfolio investment, and real exchange rates and capital openness, respectively in most developing countries, and African economies are no different.peer-reviewe

Industrialisation strategy for Zimbabwe

A paper presented at a ZIDS inaugural seminar in Harare,Zimbabwe in March, 1982

Language practices in caregiving in a South African nursing home: conflict and tension

Very little is known about the manner in which caregiving is interactionally accomplished. The role of language in caregiving has not been directly addressed. In this paper, I argue that language practices are embodied in care and that an analysis of the language practices of caregivers can give insight into the quality of care that is rendered. Based on findings of an ongoing ethnographic study, the effects of a number of different interactional styles in caregiving practices are identified and described. Some caregiving strategies are found to be conflictual, with some verbal strategies de-individualizing and infantilizing recipients of care. The strategies induce a sense of dependence in the recipients, reinforced by the ideological position of the institution, projecting inactivity and a lack of individual autonomy as the norm. Another set of strategies has the opposite effect: care recipients are constructed in discourse which foregrounds their self-actualization in a criminal frame. The criminal frame which is used to describe some recipients is in conflict with institutional discourse which, according to a biomedical model, describes residents in terms of their physiological or cognitive conditions only. I conclude the paper by outlining how sociolinguistic interventions may be implemented in care institutions

Mending The Broken Bridges: An Analysis of Familyhood in Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying (1995)

This paper examines South African literature’s paradigm shift through Zakes Mda’s disruption of the dominant trope of apartheid by his focusing on black ordinary lives in Ways of Dying. The novel foregrounds the broken bridges of love and unity that used to link families before colonisation. Mda demonstrates how the rise of the city engendered the demise of the village where blacks lived as a unified community before migrating to the city whence they sink into individualism. The discussion focuses on family units during the period of death and dying to reveal broken links that happen to have a bearing to black familyhood. The focus of the argument is on how Mda depicts and mends the lost spirit of oneness among the blacks during the final stages of the anti-apartheid struggle and the transition to a democratic South Africa. The discussion highlights a new traditional African community built on forgiveness, care and unity

Corporate community engagement framework for stakeholder relations in the extractive sector in the Western Cape, South Africa

Published ThesisStakeholder relations and Corporate Community Engagement (CCE) are both important activities that can and should be used to promote extractive sector success and sustainability. Success can be realised through stakeholder relations that is transformational in context and adaptive in character: to achieve sustainability outcomes envisaged in the CCE framework. For a transforming South African economy, sustainability should not be constrained by ineffective stakeholder relationship but contextual to the character of Corporate Community Engagement (CCE) activities for success. This study presents a framework to support effective stakeholder relations compatible with a transforming economy and supportive of CCE activities of mining companies. The characteristic of a transforming society postulate disparate perceptions of CCE and lack of its effectiveness is reported to be common. The varied perception of CCE effectiveness present the opportunity for a new framework to manage stakeholder relations for sustainability. To achieve the aim of the study, evidence of perception were collected through an exploratory sequential mixed methods approach. This approach enabled the collection of qualitative data using in-depth interviews on sixteen (16) purposefully selected employees from eight participating CCE companies and as well as quantitative online data on 384 randomly selected respondents from the extractive community using LimeSurvey. Although respondents’ perceptions were found to be mixed and variable, an understanding of the need for stakeholder’s relations effectiveness through CCE activities is common. The study concludes that CCE activities would benefit a framework that incorporates stakeholder relations as a strategy for business success and sustainability of CCE

Effects of Alzheimers dementia on conversational ability: a case study

This paper reports on a case study of the effects of dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT) on three aspects of conversational ability: turn-taking, fluency and coherence. Three conversations held over a period of 12 months with a bilingual DAT sufferer are analyzed. The results show that some aspects of conversational ability, such as turn-taking, are vulnerable to dementia and show no sign of potential recovery, unlike changes in fluency. The fluency of the subject's language use initially declined but subsequently improved somewhat. Her capacity to respond coherently systematically broke down and the responses became increasingly aberrant. The paper also highlights the problems of including conversational abilities as a separate, additional diagnostic measure of DAT

Global Summit on Student Affairs and Services: Prof. Adam Habib’s keynote

This article was originally published in University World News Global Edition and Africa Edition Issue 435 on 01 November 2016 as “Higher education struggles in an emerging democracy”.

FDI and FPI Determinants in Developing African Countries

We examine drivers of foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI) in nine selected African economies, during the period 1980 to 2014, with particular interest in the role of financial market development. We set out to explore the drivers of FDI and FPI in selected African countries, respectively. We employ the dynamic GMM methodology to assess the motivators of inward foreign flows. The results show that FDI inflows are generally dependent on past inflows of FDI, low inflation, infrastructural development, and real GDP growth rate; while stock market capitalisation, commercial bank assets gauged against commercial and central bank assets as well as domestic credit to the private sector by banks intermediate for financial market development. On the other hand, we find that FPI inflows are attracted to foreign destinations due to previous FPI inflows, the real exchange rate, inflation rates and the presence of developed infrastructure. Further, developed financial markets, as proxied by stock market capitalisation, were found to significantly and positively influence inward FPI flows, while a closed financial account and low interest rate discouraged FPI. The significant contribution of this paper is that its findings empirically confirm FDI and FPI theory, as postulated in Dunning’s eclectic paradigm insofar as the main “location†variables that enhance host country attractiveness are concerned, specifically in the African context. In light of these findings, we recommend that policy makers strengthen their domestic markets, complemented by appropriate regulations and institutions to attract foreign investment flows, while reducing their dependency on international aid and loans.&nbsp