Re-framing Zimbabwe's public agricultural extension services: Institutional analysis and stakeholders views

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

The effect of financial technology on money demand : evidence from selected African states

Purpose: The study sought to test the effect of financial technology on money demand in selected African states. The study drew from the fact that there is significant latent demand for digital payments in many markets of sub-Saharan Africa, and widespread consumer acceptance of mobile-communications technology is highly encouraging. The study sought to examine the effect of technology, among other things, on money demand. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study used panel data and a GMM panel technique to analyse the study’s findings. Findings: Results showed that all variables that captured financial technology have a negative effect with money demand (MD). Both Mobile Subscriptions (MS) and ATM (Automated Teller Machines) have a negative relationship with money demand (MD). Practical implications: Based on the results obtained in this study, the study recommended that Central Banks need to monitor and predict the consequences of financial innovations. As African states proceed with reforms of its financial sector, the stability of the demand for money would have to be reexamined and instruments of the Central Bank modified to ensure an effective control of money demand. Originality/Value: A little has been done on the effect of technological developments on money demand in Africa. An understanding of the way technological developments may positively or negatively impact on money demand may guide Central banks in adopting and implementing appropriate monetary policies and actions.peer-reviewe

The efficient market hypothesis: Evidence from ten African stock markets

The paper investigates the weak-form efficiency of ten African stock markets using the runs test methodology for serial dependency. Returns are calculated using the adjusted trade-to-trade approach. Serious thin-trading was observed on all markets, and more so for Namibia and Botswana, the two markets with significant dual-listed stocks on the JSE. In many of the markets studied, a significant number of stocks rejected the random walk. Only three markets, Namibia, Kenya and Zimbabwe, were found to be relatively weak form efficient. The result for Namibia is attributed to its correlation with the JSE. Kenya and Zimbabwe are much older than most of the other markets studied. All the stocks in the Mauritian sample rejected the random walk at the 1% level of significance using the runs test and is thus said to be weak form inefficient. The same conclusion is reached for Ghana, the BRVM, Egypt and Botswana. Thus the possibility of profiting by trading on historical prices could not be entirely ruled out.Market efficiency, African stock markets, random walk, thin trading

The consequences of online information dissemination on stock market liquidity and efficiency: Implications on African markets

From the Efficient Market Hypothesis, a market is efficient if security prices fully and correctly reflect all available information that is relevant for the stock’s pricing. This requires a medium of information dissemination and transaction ordering with both speed and accuracy. This paper chronologically presents arguments in favour of the internet as one such medium. The internet has also enabled the transmission and archiving of bulky information in a ready-to-use format. And abnormal returns are now quickly observed and arbitraged away to non-existence. Using correlation analysis, we find a positive relationship between the internet and some stock market development indicators.Efficient market hypothesis; internet; online information; stock market; development indicators; Africa

Excess co-movement in asset prices: The case of South Africa

The paper investigates excess co-movement in asset prices in South Africa between 1995 and 2005 using the definition of excess comovement as correlation between two asset prices beyond what could be explained by key economic fundamentals. The results of the study suggest that there is excess co-movement between returns on equities and bonds in South Africa. The findings suggest that there are considerable noise traders on the financial market in South Africa. The result of this behaviour would be the tendency for the equity and bond prices to move together more than would be predicted by their shared fundamentals. These results are consistent with the possibility that a fad or crowd psychology plays a role in the volatility on the market for the two asset classes.Excess co-movement; Asset prices; equity market; bond market; South Africa

How Can Economic and Political Liberalisation Improve Financial Development in African Countries?

The objective of this paper is to study the interactions between economic liberalisation, political liberalisation and financial development in African countries. More specifically, we seek to establish the impact of economic, political and institutional openness on financial deepening. The empirical approach will be two-step procedure, first using a difference in difference method to show the various aspect of financial liberalisation on economic and political freedom while the second step will be using panel data techniques from period 1990 to 2005. The estimation results can be summarised as the following, first, Economic and financial liberalisation did account significantly for the financial development performance. While political stability show a positive overall effect on financial development, the association with Political freedom is consistent only after controlling the endogeneity of Political freedom on financial development. This result indicates that the transformation of the political and economic environment has improved the performance of the financial sector.Political Liberalisation, Economic Liberalisation, Financial Development and Africa

Challenges Impeding Regional Integration in Southern Africa

Regional integration through the establishment of regional groupings has been taunted as a gateway to regional development and growth, the coming together of countries to share and contribute to knowledge, policy development, peace and security, trade and educational development is undoubtedly seen as the key to the development of Southern Africa. However, regional integration in Southern Africa has been hampered by numerous challenges which have derailed the quest of regional countries to deepen integration and cooperation. By strictly analyzing relevant literature related to regional integration in Southern Africa, it became evident that the region is engulfed with serious challenges that are hindering the quest for deeper integration, and often this is further compounded by internal economic challenges that members’ states are faced with. The study uncovered the fact that regional integration has been difficult to entrench as member states are confronted with numerous internal challenges which are diverting their need to focus on regional matters. Consequently, regional integration is under threat in Southern Africa as many countries are not effectively prioritizing the development of policies aimed at aiding its entrenchment, mainly because of the significance of the challenges that they are facing and this will further affect members’ states regarding socioeconomic development. The study underscored the importance for regional governments to cooperate on issues of common threats and urgently develop and institute policies/mechanisms that would ensure the entrenchment of regional integration and more importantly its sustainability.&nbsp

Working Paper 42 - Global Financial Crisis: Implications and Lessons for Africa

The global financial system has witnessed rapid growth and substantial structural change duringthe last ten years leading to globalisation of financial markets. The integration of financial markets hasaccentuated the rapid flow of capital across borders as well as magnified the contagious effects offinancial crisis with wide implications for transmission of financial policies on the domestic economy andinternationally. The recent financial crisis which originated in East and South East Asia (hereafter Asia)and transformed into a global crisis is a case in point. At no time since the depths of the LDC debt crisisof the 1980s has the outlook for emerging markets appeared so bleak. Economic outlook in Asia andits financial crisis appears destined to last well into 1999, and the world faces the prospects of weakergrowth. This paper reviews recent trends in global financial markets, in particular the expanding financialturmoil, which was been triggered by the Asian crisis. It examines the major factors behind financialturmoil and its impact on African countries. The paper also explores the main lessons and policyimplications for African countries. Following this introduction, Section II gives a brief account of thedynamics of the crisis—its origin and channels of transmission from one region to another. Section IIIexamines the main causes of the crisis and Section IV provides a discussion of the qualitative andquantitative impact of the crisis on African countries. The main lessons and policy implications are drawin Section V. Section VI provides the concluding remarks.

Using social learning environments to leverage traditional supervision of research students: a community of practice perspective

Includes bibliographical references.South African higher education is plagued by student articulation gap, which is often attributed to insufficient knowledge production processes and surface approaches to learning. Unfortunately, supervisor-student model of supervision, one of the direct, personal interventions to address this challenge, is plagued by multiple flaws. The traditional supervisor-student model of knowledge generation may not be adequate in externalizing research processes to students. Yet, a social learning model potentially extends the traditional model by providing a social environment where students collectively generate knowledge through peer-based interactions. Mindful of supervision dilemmas namely, this study explores technology-enhanced social learning environments as complements to traditional supervision models

Stimulating students’ critical thinking skills in pharmacology using case report generation

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