Corporate financialization in South Africa : From investment strike to housing bubble

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published in Competition & Change, June 2018, published by SAGE Publishing.This article reveals the processes of financialization in the South African economy by tracing the sources and destinations of non-financial corporations’ liquidity. The paper argues that rather than the volume of non-financial corporations’ financial investment, the composition of financial assets is crucial to assess corporate financialization in the country. Non-financial businesses in South Africa fundamentally transformed their investment behaviour during the 1990s, shifting from more productive uses such as trade credit towards highly liquid and potentially innovative (and therefore risky) financial investment. Following the direction of financial flows the article shows that companies’ financial operations – fuelled by foreign capital inflows – are linked to the price inflation in South African property markets.Peer reviewe

Financialising the State : Recent development in fiscal and monetary policy

Understanding the nature of state financialisation is crucial to ensure definancialisation efforts are successful. This paper provides a structured overview of the emerging literature on financialisation and the state. We define financialisation of the state broadly as the changed relationship between the state, understood as sovereign with duties and accountable towards its citizens, and financial markets and practices, in ways that can diminish those duties and reduce accountability. We then argue that there are four ways in which financialisation works in and through public institutions and policies: adoption of financial motives, advancing financial innovation, embracing financial accumulation strategies, and directly financialising the lives of citizens. Organising our review around the two main policy fields of fiscal and monetary policy, four definitions of financialisation in the context of public policy and institutions emerge. When dealing with public expenditure on social provisions financialisation most often refers to the transformation of public services into the basis for actively traded financial assets. In the context of public revenue, financialisation describes the process of creating and deepening secondary markets for public debt, with the state turning into a financial market player. Finally, in the realm of monetary policy financial deregulation is perceived to have paved the way for financialisation, while inflation targeting and the encouragement, or outright pursuit, of market-based short-term liquidity management among financial institutions constitute financialised policies

An assessment system for rating scientific journals in the field of ergonomics and human factors

A method for selecting and rating scientific and professional journals representing the discipline of ergonomics and human factors is proposed. The method is based upon the journal list, impact factors and citations provided by the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), and the journal list published in the Ergonomics Abstracts. Three groups of journals were distinguished. The "ergonomics journals" focus exclusively on ergonomics or human factors. The "related journals" focus on other disciplines than ergonomics or human factors, but regularly publish ergonomics/human factors papers. The "basic journals" focus on other technical, medical or social sciences than ergonomics, but are important for the development of ergonomics/human factors. Journal quality was rated using a maximum of four categories: top quality (A-level), high quality (B-level), good quality (C-level)) and professional (P-level). The above methods were applied to develop journal ratings for the year 2003. A total of 24 'ergonomics journals', 58 'related journals' and 142 'basic journals' were classified.impact factor;rating;scientific journals

An analysis of possible applications of fuzzy set theory to the actuarial credibility theory

In this work, we review the basic concepts of actuarial credibility theory from the point of view of introducing applications of the fuzzy set-theoretic method. We show how the concept of actuarial credibility can be modeled through the fuzzy set membership functions and how fuzzy set methods, especially fuzzy pattern recognition, can provide an alternative tool for estimating credibility

Canonical Quantization and Impenetrable Barriers

We address an apparent conflict between the traditional canonical quantization framework of quantum theory and the spatially restricted quantum dynamics, when the translation invariance of the otherwise free quantum system is broken by boundary conditions. By invoking an exemplary case of a particle in an infinite well, we analyze spectral problems for related, confined and global, observables. In particular, we show how one can make sense of various operators pertaining to trapped particles by not ignoring the rest of the real line (e.g., that space which is never occupied by the particle in question).Comment: to appear in Am.J.Phys (2004

Ogłoszenia sprzedaży odzieży damskiej a metody wpływania na odbiorcę

The article is devoted to a linguistic analysis of sale advertisements for women’s clothing. The main purpose of the article is to identify the means used by the authors of advertisements for women’s clothing in order to encourage the customers to make purchase. The study concentrates on the linguistic and visual aspects of the discussed microtexts. Firstly, the conducted studies have showed that the authors of advertisements try to establish dialog with an addressee of their message by the use of question forms or imperative mode. Secondly, a macroact which is the advertisement of clothing, can be composed of at least nine microacts that are intended to encourage, praise, advise or promise. In order to achieve this, the advertisers use statements, abuse exclamations, emoticons, create messages that are informatively worthless. Thirdly, the authors of advertisements attach great attention to the aspect of credibility of the message, and because of that often direct attention to well-known persons, institutions or the terms of warranty. The conducted study has demonstrated that language is a basic and most important tool in constructing effective advertising messages