Working Paper 134 - Inflation Targeting, Exchange Rate Shocks and Output: Evidence from South Africa

This paper derives the inflation equation to search for a possible transmission channel between the real interest rate, inflation rate, exchange rates, real output growth rate using a Bayesian VAR sign restriction approach. Our findings show that the real interest rate reacts negatively to inflation rate shocks and the Fisher effect holds in the long run. We show that strict inflation targeting approach is not compatible with significant real output growth. However a flexible inflation-targeting framework which attaches a large weight to the role of real effective exchange rates results in a significant real output growth given the Central Bank desire to accumulate more foreign exchange reserves and high oil price inflation. Thus real effective exchange rate measuring competitiveness against trading partners matters more than domestic currency and nominal effective exchange rate depreciations.

Working Paper 133 - Monetary Policy Transmission, House Prices and Consumer Spending in South Africa: An SVAR Approach

The study used a structural vector autoregressive approach to estimate and quantify the percentage decline in consumption expenditure, which can be attributed to changes in housing wealth, after monetary policy tightening. The effects are separated using a disaggregated Absa house price data, namely all-size, large-size and medium-size and small-size house prices.The results suggest that at the peak of the interest rate effects on consumption the combined effect of housing wealth and credit extension changes, following a monetary policy tightening, was a decline of 9.8 per cent in all-size, 3.7 per cent in small-size, 4.7 per cent in medium-size and 5.3 per cent in large-size houses. The findings indicate heterogeneity in the transmission of interest rate effects operating through housing wealth and the credit channel. Moreover, we reached the same conclusion after modifying the baseline model by adding the restrictions that house price also respond to both aggregate demand and aggregate supply variables. Lastly, the differences between the counterfactual consumption and the baseline consumption responses, provided little support for the assumption that the housing wealth channel is the dominant source of monetary policy transmission to consumption.This paper thus provided an understanding of the indirect channels through which monetary policy influences real variables by focusing on monetary policy transmission to consumption via house prices. We showed interest rate effects, working through both housing wealth and the credit channel, influence real spending. Thus, interest rate effects operating through housing wealth and the credit channel are felt differently by the four house categories. Moreover, the differences between the consumption impulse responses from the counterfactual and baseline scenarios provide little support that combined house wealth and credit effect channels are the dominant sources of monetary policy transmission to consumption. These findings suggest that the direct effects of high interest rates on consumption appear to be more important in transmitting monetary policy to the economy than through the indirect effects. Hence, monetary policy tightening can only marginally weaken inflationary pressures arising from excessive consumption operating through housing wealth and the credit channel.

Morphological characteristics of humeri and ulnae relating to supratrochlear aperture expression

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in accomplishment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 25 May 2015The supratrochlear aperture (STA) is a perforation of the septum found between the olecranon and coronoid fossae of the humerus. Its prevalence is population specific and varies by sex. This study investigated the prevalence, shape and population-level variability of the STA, as well as the morphological attributes of dry humeri and ulnae according to STA expression, in South African populations (White, Mixed ethnicity and Black). The tissue found in the aperture was sampled from cadavers and studied by histochemical techniques. The objective was to identify the characteristics of STA bearing limbs in order to evaluate the possible etiology and function of the aperture. The overall prevalence of the STA among South Africans was found to be 32.5%. Significant population differences exist, with Whites having the lowest rate of 16% and Sotho peoples expressing the highest prevalence of 41% among the Black group. The STA was more prevalent in females and on the left arm. In bilateral cases, females had twice the prevalence rate. Osteometric measures of bone size were used to test the propositions that robust humeri are less prone to STA formation and that pressure from the ulnar olecranon and coronoid processes may result in an STA. Most measures of overall humeral size, such as epicondylar breadth, humeral head circumference and the three shaft circumferences, were significantly larger when the STA was absent in all three populations. This supports the general proposition that gracile bones are prone to septal perforation. However, an important result of this study is the finding from the discriminant analyses that determinants of STA status are population specific. For Blacks and the Mixed group, the olecranon process length was the sole main contributor to STA status. Lower loadings for this variable were found for the Mixed group. Therefore, this variable can more reliably predict STA status in Blacks compared to the Mixed group. In Whites, with a lower prevalence of the STA, more parameters are required for STA prediction compared to the Mixed group or Blacks. These additional parameters were proximal humeral shaft circumference (right) and trochlear notch depth (left). The presence of dense connective tissue found crossing the aperture needs to be explained as it appears to be a feature unique to the distal humerus. It is possible that the STA forms as a result of incomplete remodeling in response to pressure from the olecranon process. The result would be bone resorption and subsequent osteoblastic secretion of collagen, but no incorporation of hydroxyapatite occurs – rendering the aperture region pliant and able to withstand the continuing force of the olecranon during joint motion. As to the function of the STA covering tissue, it may be of considerable structural strength in light of its dense regular connective tissue composition. It is strongly attached to the bony septum in a manner comparable to the way tendons attach to bone, suggesting a need for structural strength. One explanation for this particular feature of the tissue may be that it functions to prevent locking the olecranon process in the joint. An additional aspect to be considered regarding function of the STA is that the mean extension angle in the STA bearing arms was greater. This implies that the olecranon process tip may penetrate the aperture (as observed on many dry humeri, when articulated with ulnae and elbow joints maximally extended), permitting a greater extension angle. It follows that the elbow range of motion is greater in STA individuals. Based on orthopedic surgical experience, bones with the STA are thought to have a narrower medullary canal. Humeri with the STA in our study did appear to have narrower medullary canal dimensions. However, this was not the case after standardizing for bone size. The smaller medullary canal width observed in STA humeri is due to the bone size differences rather than the presence of the STA. We therefore propose that bone size be the major factor to consider when making choices of a rod for intramedullary fixation

Cross-cultural adjustment experiences of academic expatriates in some South African universities: The case of KwaZulu-Natal

This article discusses the cross-cultural adjustment experiences of selected academic expatriates from selected South African universities based in the KwaZulu-Natal Province. Quantitative data was collected from 142 out of 277 academic expatriates. Statistical procedures were used to analyse, interpret and make meaning of the raw data. The findings revealed that academic expatriates experience general and interaction adjustment challenges associated with the use of local languages and the understanding of local culture. However, female academic expatriates were found to be better adjusted in interaction and general adjustment as compared to their male counterparts. Furthermore, work adjustment challenges triggered by the poor coordination of work permit application were also discovered. The study stressed revision of human resources practices, immigration policies as well as cross-cultural adjustment support for academic expatriates into South African host academic institutions.

“According to social media…” Examining the influence of social media on political reporting within Zimbabwe’s mainstream media

The Internet’s liberative qualities have been hyped by a number of Zimbabwean scholars who argue, on the basis of the existence of online alternative media that carries political content, that democratisation can be technology-led. Given that the question of source selection is connected to the democratising potential of the Internet (Lecheler and Kruikemeier, 2016) by some scholars – this study interrogated the liberative potential of the Internet by tracing the social media sourcing patterns of four daily newspapers within Zimbabwe’s polarised mainstream media. Using a mixed methods approach which deployed Actor-Network theory as a preliminary methodological tool, this study collected and evaluated empirical data drawn from 146 social media sourced political stories published over a 30-month period and the responses from semi-structured interviews with purposively sampled participants – to account for the human and non-human actors in the news production network. A social constructivist analytical lens was then used to appreciate the contexts in which social media sourcing was being adopted in newsrooms, which revealed how unique circumstances had triggered unprecedented reliance on social media as a political news source. Those unique circumstances involved an escalation of factional fighting within the ruling ZANU PF that morphed into a propaganda war, which was waged through The Herald newspaper by one faction and through social media by the other faction. The public feud, which played out on social media, forced political reporters to gather story ideas from social media and overly rely on a few tech savvy elite sources. In these circumstances, social media’s influence on the political news agenda was overstated as it was conflated with the influence of a news event (ZANU PF factionalism) and the influence of social media users (high-ranking ZANU PF members) who could not be ignored. It is hoped that the findings of this study will contribute towards filling the lacuna in terms of scholarship demonstrating the influence of social media within Zimbabwe’s political narratives

FACTORS INFLUENCING RELAPSE IN INDIVIDUALS WITH SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS: AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

Substance abuse is a global problem that has generated considerable concern among patients, families, clinicians and researchers. Existing research has not explored the views of social workers as treatment professionals but has focused on the service users and their significant others. A qualitative study was conducted to explore the factors influencing relapse in individuals with substance use disorders (SUDs) from a social work perspective. The findings revealed that various factors play a role in relapse at the different levels described from the ecological perspective. The study contributes towards the development of strategies to combat relapse and help in formulating relapse prevention programmes

Introduction for the special Issue on BIG DATA

Today we live in the era of Big Data Revolution, overwhelmed with data, information and knowledge that is spread all over the web, in social media sites, in smartphones contributing so in creating a large base of big data. In their best seller book ‘Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think’ (2013) Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier argue that thanks to the internet, social networking, smartphones and credit cards, more data is being collected and stored about us than ever before – and this has created an opportunity for firms and managers to easily and cheaply capture and store massive amounts of data in a way that was simply impossible before. In this scenario the winners will be those that have the abilities, the intelligence, the creativity and the tools to elaborate these data for grasping insights and knowledge from the available data and to be able to use and exploit them for continuous innovation, for improving firms performance, for creating new products and services as well as for establishing new innovative business models. According to a study realized by McKinsey  (Manyika  et al, 2011) to analyze the impact of big data analysis for  innovation, competition, and productivity they argue that there are 5 broad ways in which using data can create value: Big data can unlock significant value by making information transparent and usable at much higher frequency. As organizations create and store more transactional data in digital form, they can collect more accurate and detailed performance information on everything from product inventories to sick days, and therefore expose variability and boost performance.Big data allows ever-narrower segmentation of customers and therefore much more precisely tailored products or services. Sophisticated analytics can substantially improve decision-making. Big data can be used to improve the development of the next generation of products and services. On the other hand, the availability of big data has created a new era also for data analysis and elaboration to discover unknown patterns, to find out what customers want, what they evaluate,  to get closer to customers, to gain a wealth of information about their behaviors and preferences, as well as to identify new market trends and new opportunities to remain competitive. The ability of firms to aggregate, elaborate and analyze the data is becoming a key competitive advantage resource. Different researches have evidenced the role and the outcomes that the big data analysis could bring to firms in terms of innovation, efficiency, productivity, quality and customer satisfaction. In a survey study of more than 3,000 business executives, managers and analysts from organizations, MIT Sloan Management Review, in collaboration with the IBM Institute for Business Value found out that executives are oriented toward managing the business based on data-driven decisions and it is the use of business information and analytics that differentiates them within their industry (Lavalle et al, 2010). Moreover, the content and information that customers create in web 2.0 platforms constitute a valuable asset for firms to directly tap into the customer’s preferences and needs, as the most valuable source for attaining direct and reliable market information. In this environment, more and more firms are building their competitive advantage on their ability to collect, analyze and act on data. Therefore, the capability of firms to tap into data, to analyze and interpret them to gain insights and to ensure a more effective decision making process has become an essential ingredient towards innovative thinking and creativity. Therefore, there is a need of matching the analytical capacities with the creativity in order to interpret big data in an innovative way. It is in this aim that we have realized these special issue of the journal to publish some  research articles that use statistical and analytical models to elaborate big data for a large range of issues and sectors and for establishing new innovative insights. The issue presents four research papers that focus on providing practical cases of exploiting big data for grasping new insights and opportunities. In particular: The article on ‘Big Data and Knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship: trends and opportunities in the tourism’, the authors Del Vecchio et al., focuses on the growing relevance of Big Data as valuable source of knowledge impacting on the creation and execution of knowledge-intensive entrepreneurship. The article provides a detailed description regarding the opportunities offered by Big Data by demonstrating, with practical applications from the tourism field, how the large amount of knowledge distributed in the web can support the conception and execution of an entrepreneurial process more aligned with the customers' needs and focused on the actual market's trends.   Carpita and Simonetti in the article ‘Big Data to Monitor Big Social Events: Analysing the mobile phone signals in the Brescia Smart City’ present the implications that big data analysis  could provide for Municipal administration to plan future events, and more generally to develop policies for the ‘smart city. They use the statistical methods to process and assess really high mass of data and information extracted from mobile phone signals in order to  improve the quality of the big social events that take place in the city as well as to create the conditions for developing useful reports for territorial marketing. The paper on ‘Ontological analysis for dynamic data model exploration’ by Hobbs et al., explores the expressive approaches to data analysis. The authors provide an aggregate model that utilizes ontological tools to create domain models in a way that it allows for a distributed and parallel implementation necessary for big data analysis. In the article ‘Implementation of a Web-based Application for Predicting Best Training Recommenders for Princess Norah University Employees’ the authors Mohammad and  Alhaidey propose the realization of  a recommender system that would help in the decision making process and planning of the training course offered by organizations for their employees. The recommender system is based on using data mining techniques that allows the observer to discover specific patterns and knowledge from large databases and carrying out predictions for outputs.

Animal welfare in multipurpose cattle production Systems and its implications on beef quality

Animal welfare and its influence on beef production are major  considerations in many developed countries. In the developing world, where food insecurity and poverty are prevalent, the welfare of animals receives low priority due to factors such as traditional customs and beliefs, lack of knowledge in animal handling and sub standard handling facilities. This is worsened by the fact that cattle are used for several purposes, such as meat production, milk production, draught power and traditional ceremonies. Research on animal welfare and how it relates to animal production have been done in the developed world. The objective of this study is to discuss indicators of animal welfare assessment, their impact on meat quality and applications to improve beef production in developing countries.Key words: Behavioural assessments, flight zones, meat quality, ritual slaughter

Animal welfare in multipurpose cattle production Systems and its implications on beef quality

Animal welfare and its influence on beef production are major considerations in many developed countries. In the developing world, where food insecurity and poverty are prevalent, the welfare of animals receives low priority due to factors such as traditional customs and beliefs, lack of knowledge in animal handling and sub standard handling facilities. This is worsened by the fact that cattle are used for several purposes, such as meat production, milk production, draught power and traditional ceremonies. Research on animal welfare and how it relates to animal production have been done in the developed world. The objective of this study is to discuss indicators of animal welfare assessment, their impact on meat quality and applications to improve beef production in developing countries

Awareness of ecological economics as a model for promoting sustainable construction

Abstract: Construction industry is a major consumer of natural resources and this has a significant impact on the environment and socio-economic development of society. The result of this impact includes deforestation; climate change, air, water and land pollution; and the like. Ecological economics (EE) models are tools for assessing and understanding these issues with a view to enhancing green buildings and sustainable construction in general. As part of a continuous study, this research therefore examines the level of awareness of the concept of EE by construction professionals in a quest to adopting the principle of sustainable development. Data were collected through questionnaires administered on relevant and experienced construction professionals such as construction project managers, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors and construction managers. EE as an aid would help in mitigating construction impacts on the environment, thereby enhancing sustainability but it is barely practised in the construction industry. This is as a result of the fact that construction professionals have little or no knowledge of its existence in the local industry. Most professionals with knowledge of the concept in the study area obtained the information on sustainability through the media and short courses .. The basic influencing factors are related to professionals' levels of education, the economic development of the country and knowledge of the environment. Introducing EE through communicating new ideas to stakeholders (through environmental campaigns, conferences, and the like) as well as incentivising ideas for change relating to greener construction will assist in overcoming the barriers to the adoption of EE in the construction industry. Professionals also need to keep abreast of current sustainable practices, their benefits, challenges, barriers as well as the methods of overcoming these barriers in their quest for delivering sustainable projects