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Provincial Treasuries are responsible for assisting the National Treasury in enforcing compliance with the measures established in the South African constitution, which stipulates public sector expenditure control and transparency. This study aims to examine the relationship between internal audit effectiveness and financial accountability in the Provincial Treasuries of South Africa. The theoretical inclination is on the stewardship theory. The research is based on a quantitative approach and draws secondary data on internal audit and financial performance from the nine provincial treasuries of South Africa. Analyses were done using the fixed effect regression after conduction the Hausman tests, Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests (ADF) and Philips Perron (PP). Findings indicate that internal audit can enhance financial accountability across all the expenditure programmes of provincial treasuries in South Africa. Government departments should embrace internal audit as a monitoring tool to evaluate financial accountability and service delivery performance, but not as a punitive initiative. In addition, educational training of internal audit staff can be very effective in achieving government financial control. The paper provides a veritable case study to higher institutions regarding educational qualification versus experience implications on public sector internal audit and accountability; it also offers an agenda for further research.

This paper highlights the computerisation fundamentals of accounting information system through accounting software application. It presents the layers of computerisation, which are pivotal to the application of accounting software, namely the hardware, the application, and system software. Furthermore, it highlights accounting software with selected examples from the Sage Accounting Software and notes significant advantage of applying the accounting software into accounting operations. These include amongst others integration of different items and different segments, speed, reliability, volume, storage, virtual, and real-time concurrent operations. It highlights nascent threat to computerisation and remote accounting processing, namely the ransom-ware cyber-attack. Therefore, the development of new anti-cyber-attack accounting software becomes very pertinent.

This paper analyses the response of stock markets to vaccine availability. The objective of this paper is to examine the differential effect of information about the arrival of COVID vaccine on the stock price performance of five main global stock market indexes. The paper relies on the prior theory of Efficient Market Hypotheses (EMH). Data on stock price performance, seven months before vaccine arrival, and seven months within the vaccination period were from Trading Economics stock indexes archives for five main market indexes namely (Dow Jones, Shanghai, S&P, FTSE, and EURONEXT). The data were analysed using the t-test of mean difference in stock prices before and during vaccine at 5% alpha level. Results for the five indexes analysis show that stock prices during the arrival of vaccine significantly outweigh the stock prices before vaccine arrival at p-values below 0.01. The mean stock price increases during vaccine arrival ranges from 7% to over 20% for the different indexes. The paper provides practical information for investors who need to know how sensitive the various indexes are to vaccine information. The paper also provides an avenue for future research to expand this initial research on vaccine effect on stock prices. Furthermore, the paper presents a veritable case study for economics and finance postgraduate students in the universities. This paper fills existing gap in knowledge by being the first to analyse the effect of COVID vaccine arrival on the stock price of five main global stock indexes and contributes by indicating that stock indexes are sensitive to vaccine production with diverse percentages of sensitivity.

This paper assesses the level of corporate sustainability disclosures in an environmentally-sensitive industry in Nigeria - the oil and gas industry. The paper aims to evaluate the extent of sustainability disclosure in the annual report’s oil and gas industries. The study retrieves secondary data on sustainability disclosure for 10 years (2010 - 2019) from eight oil and gas industries listed in the Nigerian stock exchange through a desktop approach and content analysis methodology. Content analysis of the sustainability disclosure is to identify items of sustainability disclosed in the annual reports. The paper assesses the extent of disclosure by adopting the global reporting initiative’s scoring index. Findings from the analysis indicate a very low-level climate change and environmental pollution disclosure. Only 13.8% of the companies disclosed their impact on climate change and environmental pollution. On the contrary, all the companies revealed their community investment, which this paper regards as legitimizing smokescreen ecological pollution. The paper contributes to the literature by connecting the legitimacy theory to the decoying sustainability disclosure of oil and gas companies in Nigeria. In conclusion, the study recommends more stringent sustainability disclosure policies for the oil and gas to provide more information for environmental and climate change advocates and investors in censuring the companies, which might instill improved environmental compliance.Keywords: Climate Change, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Governance Indicators, Oil and Gas, Renewable Materials, Social Indicators, Sustainability DisclosuresJEL Classifications: M4, M14, M140, Q53, Q54, Q56, Q57DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.11095

financial grant creates an avenue to reduce poverty, inequality and to improve equitable economic development. The objective of this paper is to examine the effect of social financial grant increases on poverty alleviation in South Africa. The paper inclines on prior poverty theories of economic growth, which highlights the use of social financial grants to achieve poverty reduction and equitable economic growth. The paper applies a quantitative approach; data on social grants were from the publications of the South African department of statistics and the South African Social Security Agency. The ensuing cross-sectional data were analysed using the structural equation modelling approach. Findings from the analysis indicate that, amongst the seven types, only three namely, the grants for old age, grants for disability and grants for supporting a child enhances reduction in inequality. On the contrary, four of the seven social grant types enhance reduction in poverty level; these are the grants for war veterans, aid grants, grants for dependency, and grants for fostering a child. The paper highlights policy implications of the findings, which includes inter alia, that policy makers may target poverty reduction or inequality reduction using specific social grant types. Findings from this paper provide an avenue for further research to assess poverty and inequality reduction through these social grant types in other developing economies. Such research should check if this current research result is replicable using social grant data from other developing countries. This paper uniquely applies the SEM model to evaluate poverty and inequality implication of social grants in South Africa.

Recently, there has been a growth in digital technology use and social media adoption by individuals, including entrepreneurs, that has changed the way individuals and businesses communicate and interact (Chatterjee & Kar, 2020; Harrigan, Miles, Fang, & Roy, 2020). Despite this, little is known about how the adoption of online social interaction affects entrepreneurial processes, especially opportunity evaluation. Through a moderation approach, this empirical study sought to fill the gap by investigating the effect of social interaction via social media on opportunity evaluation, specifically if the effect of online social interaction on opportunity evaluation depends on effectuation and causation. Using a quantitative method approach, survey questionnaires were used to collect data from a random sample of young entrepreneurs in Ghana. The questions were evaluated with SPSS and later exported to STATA for data analysis. A total of 383 questionnaires were analysed. The study found that the interaction effect from the linear regression model showed that although there is a positive relationship between effectuation and social interaction, while causation interacts negatively with social interaction, the moderation effects were not statistically significant. It is recommended that future research considers other factors that may facilitate or hinder the opportunity evaluation process and to what extent they do, which may lead to a better understanding of targeting entrepreneurial training.

This article assesses the link between the four pillars of gender equality and extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. Accordingly, the objective of the paper is to empirically examine whether the four pillars of gender equality, namely women’s health, women education, political participation of women and economic participation facilitate extreme poverty alleviation in sub-Saharan Africa. Data were collected from the World Bank development indicators and World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Index for 25 sub-Saharan African countries whose data appear on both indexes for three years into the SDGs era. Th e paper applied a quantitative approach with secondary data on poverty gap index drawn from the World Economic Forum Poverty Gap Index for sub-Saharan Africa. Data for twenty-fi ve sub-Saharan African countries were analysed using the fi xed-eff ect panel data regression approach using the Hauseman model selection test. Findings from the analysis indicate that, ceteris paribus, an increase in the threegender equity variables namely economic participation of women, education of women and political participation and leadership of women in sub-Saharan Africa has a signifi cant potential to reduce extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa within the sample of study. Since the fi ndings of this study have shown that extreme poverty can be reduced through increased women participation in economic activity, education and leadership, the SDG of poverty alleviation can be improved in sub-Saharan Africa through better government provision of economic, educational and leadership opportunities for women such as providing women with free-interest small business start-up funds, free education for women and supporting women to ascend and survive in political and leadership positions in sub-Saharan Africa through a balanced quota for female leadership positions. Given that the women’s health variable did not prove to be signifi cant on extreme poverty, further research is recommended to separate the health variable into rural health and urban health variables in order to examine the possibility that either of the health clusters might contribute signifi cantly to reducing extreme poverty. Th is paper contributes to existing literature by providing an empirical evidence to show that gender equality in sub-Saharan Africa is a viable policy strategy for achieving the SDGs 2030 Agenda of extreme poverty eradication in sub-Saharan Africa; the paper also provides empirical model for future study. References: Aksyonova, S. Yu., & Kurylo, I. (2018). Postponement of Childbirth in UkraineTh rough the Prism of Cohort Women. Demography and the Social Economy, 3 (34), 11-25. doi: https:// doi.org/10.15407/dse2018.03.011 [in Ukrainian]. 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This paper examines the relationship between municipal governance quality and assurance quality. The paper’s pertinence lies in the deteriorating state of municipal service delivery and the Auditor General South Africa’s (2016) recurring reporting of poor financial management in the vast majority South Africa’s municipalities. Hence, the objective of the paper is to analyse the relationship between municipal governance quality (with quality of performance reports as the proxy) and the municipal assurance quality (with financial statement quality as a proxy). Data was collected from the archives of the Auditor General’s consolidated municipal audit reports for the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 fiscal years. The data was subjected to quantitative analysis using the fixed and random effects panel data regression methods. Findings from the statistical analysis in both models show that the quality of performance reports is significantly related to the quality of assurance, with a p value of less than 0.05. The findings suggest that real improvement in municipalities’ public service delivery and financial management depends on the level of improvement in governance quality, and the latter requires that bureaucrats tackle the now perennial issue of poor governance quality. This paper offers practical and researchbased recommendations, most important of which is the need to implement quarterly quality-of-governance and assurance checks in the municipalities, thus avoiding the extended delays associated with the annual audit cycle. The second recommendation is for further research to examine the relationship between governance quality and assurance quality in the national government sphere, to determine the degree to which the challenges experienced are similar to those at the municipal level.

This paper presents an empirical analysis of public energy access imperative on economic growth in South Africa. The paper is motivated by current paucity of research regarding rural energy provision and economic growth in South Africa. Hence, this research adds a nuanced contribution to the literature by examining the relationship between rural and urban energy provision and economic growth in South Africa. Time series data on public electricity provision for South Africa were collected from 1998 to 2017 from the World Bank economic indicators’ data archive. After testing for unit root, a cointegration regression was conducted. Results from the statistical analysis indicate a cointegration relationship between urban and rural energy provision and economic growth in South Africa. This relationship is positive and significant – indicating that increased energy access for urban and rural dwellers is a veritable tool for stimulating economic growth. The paper’s finding is germane for public policy makers in charge of public energy provision. The paper highlights the need for improved public energy provision to rural communities. Further research is needed to examine the role of rural energy provision on the growth of informal economy in South Africa.Keywords: Public energy provision; economic growth; urban energy access; rural energy access; South Africa; energy provisionJEL Classifications: O1; O2; H4DOI: https://doi.org/10.32479/ijeep.9388

This article examines the economic ripple of United States-China trade war on South Africa. Data were analysed using the paired t-test statistics for means. Results indicate that the United States suffered a significant increase in trade deficit during the first year of the US-China trade war in 2018 compared to the pre-trade war period in 2017. South Africa witnessed a significant increase in the balance of trade deficit in 2018 during the first year of the trade war. In addition, the South African currency has suffered increased volatility during this period of US-China trade war. In conclusion, the paper highlights that based on past US trade war history, the United States may suffer more losses if the current trade war continues. The paper recommends inter alia, the urgent need for the United States and China to resolve the trade impasse, and the need for South Africa to diversity its exports in order to penetrate new markets.

This paper examines the effect of licensing of foreign technology on new product innovation and market access. Data were collected from the archives of the World Bank’s Global Enterprises Survey for fifty countries. The data were analysed using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) with the aid of STATA software. The SEM result show that licensing of external technology is positively and significantly related to new product innovation and access to market. However, the moderating independent variable (website usage) did not show a significant relationship with new product innovation and market access. The paper offers practical implication for new product innovation, which is that local enterprises can save the internal cost and time of research and development for new products by adopting the option of licensing foreign technology. This also has the advantage of assisting local enterprises to offer a new product to the market. Further research is recommended to add more countries to increase the number of observations.

This paper presents a current analysis of the effect of coronavirus pandemic on select global stock indexes (SSE Composite Index [China], Euronext 100 [Europe], Dow Jones Industrial Average [United States of America]. The objective of the paper is to evaluate the extent and direction of the differential effect of COVID-19 pandemic on select world stock index. The data on stock value performance were gathered for fifty days before and fifty days within the Coronavirus epidemic; data were analysed using the paired t-test of difference in mean stock values at an alpha level of 0.05(5%). The results reveal that the COVID-19 pandemic has different effects on the stock markets. Dow Jones Industrial Average showed a significant reduction in mean stock value during the coronavirus period, Chinese Stock Exchange Composite Index experienced a significant increase in mean stock values during epidemic higher than before the epidemic. On the contrary, the S&P 500 and the Euronext 100 indexes show a non-significant difference in mean stock price. The paper provides direction to stock market participants, investors and speculators regarding a safer investment destination during this time of COVID-19 pandemic; the paper serves a good case study for class room teaching and also provides direction for further research. This paper provides the first empirical research on the early effect of COVID-19 pandemic on three global important regional stock indexes, which finds that some stock markets such as the Shanghai Composite Index is resilient to COVID-19 pandemic.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the differential effect of Brexit on the British stock market and money market before and after the Brexit referendum. Prior work. Many research articles have emerged on the economic effect of Brexit, but these papers have largely been predictive in nature; this paper builds on these prior research and examines what exists rather than being predictive. Approach. Stock market data and exchange rate data were collected from the London Stock Exchange. The data were analyzed with the usage of paired t-test of difference in means. Results: Findings from the analysis show a negative stock value within three days after the referendum, but further analysis show a positive stock value increase within twenty one days after the Brexit referendum. Additionally, the t-test results show that the British Pound fluctuated toward a weaker trajectory than the pre-Brexit period. Implications: Policy makers should shorten the negotiation period for exiting international integrations to reduce protracted loss of investments. Future searchers should observe more days to expand this paper’s new result between stock and money market fluctuations. Value: This paper contributes by examining the difference in fluctuation between stock and money market effects of Brexit.

The main aim of this paper is to empirically assess the relationship between macroeconomic indicators, political regime, and corporate responsibility reporting in African countries. Using ex post facto research design, the paper stands out from previous analyses by including other independent variables, such as regulatory quality, rule of law and government effectiveness in assessing the relationship between corporate responsibility reporting, macroeconomic indicators, and political regime. The population comprises 58 African countries, and the sample is based on 48 African countries. Secondary data was employed to gather information on the variables. The study used a multiple regression model to examine the relationship between foreign direct investment, gross domestic product, inflation, political regime, and corporate responsibility reporting in African countries. The study found an insignificant positive relationship between the number of corporate responsibility reports, political regime, foreign direct investment, gross domestic product, and inflation after applying controls for government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and rule of law. The paper assists in understanding the relationship between political regime, macroeconomic indicators, and corporate responsibility reporting in Africa. Also, an understanding of how institutional factors influence corporate responsibility reporting in African countries could help enforcement institutions, such as the stock exchange, industry regulators and key players that monitor corporate, social, and environmental responsibility issues, to take the necessary steps to improve responsibility reporting provided by organizations in Africa. To conclude, the paper makes a unique contribution to the assessment of the relationship between macroeconomic indicators, political regime, and corporate responsibility reporting.

Climate change continues to unleash wider negative ramifications on humans, including grain production with attendant economic consequences. This paper explored the relationship between climateinduced temperature and grain production in Southern African countries. It contributes to the literature by charting the financial implication framework. Maize production was used as a proxy for grain production and archival data on maize production were collected from a sample of five Southern African countries, where high temperature and drought has inflicted havoc on grain farming within the recent years. Hence, data on the five countries were collected over six years 2011 – 2016. Applying the panel data approach and the fixed effect OLS regression, results showed a high correlation between high temperature and low maize productivity in Southern African countries. Further analysis showed that high temperature and drought has led to high cost of production on farmers, increasing price of grain and overall increase in consumer expenditure on maize, which is a staple crop in Southern Africa. The paper prepared a framework of financial implication, which touches on how the poor consumers might be affected by climate change-induced temperature increases. The paper recommends further study, which should expand on the sample size to conduct future research on this relationship. It also provides an agenda for further research on the effect of climate change induced-temperature on food poverty gap in Southern Africa. This recommendation is significant since eradication of food poverty is a vital feature of the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda.

This paper evaluates the relationship between human capital investment and economic growth in two sub-Saharan African countries (Kenya and South Africa). The paper applied a quantitative approach and secondary data were collected from the World Bank economic and education indicators from 1987 to 2016 (30 years). A cross sectional panel data arrangement gave a total of 60 observations and the fixed effect panel regression was applied using the Gretl econometrics package. The paper adds a nuance to previous methods and results by adding yearly time dummy in the model. Results show that investment in human capital is positively related to economic growth in the two sub-Saharan African countries. The paper highlights the significance results from time dummies, which shows that time is of essence in empirical analysis of this relationship and that investment in education would yield positive result on economic growth with timing considerations; this indicates that a waiting attitude is essential when investing in human capital. The paper recommends that economic policy makers should, in addition to universal primary education, commit more resources to secondary and university education to increase the stock of human capital in Africa as secondary and university education produce middle and high-level human capital. Improved policy that would fortify the colleges and universities in Africa would produce and retain quality human capital in Africa to spur economic growth. It also recommends that future research should consider the inclusion of yearly dummies when analysing the relationship between human capital investment and economic growth.

As developing nations grapple with the economic challenges of the 21st century, the aptness of new approaches to boost economic growth is more than ever desired. To this end, this paper examined the relationship between the proportion of seats of women in national parliament and economic growth in South Africa; accordingly, the paper is anchored on women and development theory. The research applied a quantitative approach and secondary data on proportion of female seats in South Africa’s national parliament and the GDP growth for South Africa were retrieved from the World Bank development indicators for 1998 – 2017 (20 years); in addition, foreign direct investment (FDI) was used as a control variable. The OLS regression statistics was applied to analyse the relationship at an alpha value of 0.05. Findings from the results showed that whilst the FDI disclosed no significant relationship with economic growth, the proportion of female seats in national parliament indicated a significant positive relationship with the GDP growth for South Africa during the 20 years of study at a P-value of 0.0001. The paper contributes to the literature by examining this phenomenon within the South African context. From the result, the paper makes policy and research recommendations, which includes inter alia, the need to balance the parliamentary seats equitably for females and to increase female political seats in provincial legislators and in municipal managerial seats as this has the propensity to increase economic growth the more. Further research is apposite to examine this relationship at the provincial levels and across countries in Africa in a cross-sectional panel approach.

This paper undertook an analysis to decipher the degree to which stock exchanges’ environmental proclivity has influenced companies’ environmental commitment. The paper is pertinent, as stock exchanges have often been criticised as instruments of capitalism hegemony, it thus helps to assuage such criticism given the paper’s findings about the growing environmental advocacy of stock exchanges to blend with their core economic objective to ensure environmental sustainability. The paper adopted a quantitative approach using the ordinary least square (OLS) technique with time series data from the Carbon Disclosure Project archive showing the number of companies engaging in carbon disclosure over the years. Holding other factors constant, and at an alpha of 0.05 significance level, findings from the analysis show that growth in stock exchanges’ environmental initiatives has contributed a positive and significant booster to corporate environmental commitment at P level of 0.020 significance, using number of carbon disclosing companies as a proxy for environmental commitment. The paper also found that the launch of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges in 2009 provided an additional impetus that has accelerated the environmental sustainability momentum of stock exchanges. The paper recommends further research on the extent to which corporate carbon commitments has resonated with pragmatic carbon reduction.

This paper evaluated the effect of agricultural input (fertilizer) on carbon emission (methane and nitrous oxide) in South Africa and the likely environmental costs of such emissions. The paper applied a quantitative research design and data were from secondary sources, mainly from the archives of Index Mundi, the US EPA and the World Bank. The Pearson correlation results show that fertilizer input is related to agricultural nitrous oxide and methane emissions at a P-value of 0.027 and 0.05 respectively. This thus, confirms that fertilizer input causes an agricultural induced emission of greenhouse gases (nitrous oxide and methane). Furthermore, findings from the estimation of potential environmental costs of methane and nitrous oxide emissions showed that these have had rising and steady environmental costs to the society, which, unfortunately is born by the society. Consequently, the study recommends agricultural related emission policy to enable farmers internalise some of the environmental costs of agricultural inputs that are born by the society, which is the socioeconomic costs. Such further research should determine a fair model that may be used to internalise environmental costs of agricultural inputs but to avoid consumers of agricultural produce from paying for such costs.

The paper examines environmental friendliness, measured by emissions intensity and energy usage intensity on accounting and market value, measured by return on asset, return on sale, equity returns and market value of equity deflated by sale of JSE’s SRI firms for the period 2008-2014. Applying differenced Arellano-Bond DPD estimations, we cited shortcomings of some previously applied methods used to examine environmental performance effect on corporate financial performance. Our pooled data result showed a negative effect of energy usage intensity on return on asset and return on sale, but a positive effect on market value of equity deflated by sale. Contrary, emissions intensity showed positive effect on return on asset and return on sale, but a negative effect on market value of equity deflated by sale. When the paper accounts for omitted variable bias, environmental friendliness exhibited insignificant effect on all financial measures. After we control for omitted variable bias and possible orthogonality conditions we found negative effect of energy usage intensity on equity returns and a positive effect of emissions intensity on market value of equity deflated by sale.

This paper evaluated the relationship between water infrastructure financing and water provision in South Africa. The research followed a quantitative research design; secondary data for water infrastructure financing and water provision in South Africa was obtained from the Trans - Caledon Tunneling Agency (TCTA) and the World Bank for the period 1994 - 2014 . The regression results indicated two separate findings which offers unique contribution to the current literature; results from water asset finance as a single independent variable on water provision showed a significant relationship. However, an addition of two control variables , corruption and violence, neutralised the effectiveness of water asset finance on water provision to the extent that water asset finance became less significant with a P value of 0.05. The paper makes a nuance contribution from the findings, which specifically is that finance alone may not deliver target water provision if corruption and violence is left unbridled. The paper thus recommends the need for public policy makers to control the rate of corruption and violence to enable effective application of water infrastructure finance in water provision. The paper also recommends the need for further research on other government departments to integrate corruption and violence as control variables.

This paper presents an evaluation of the linkage between climate policy evolution and development of carbon finance. The paper is very necessary for climate risk governance and control since it highlights empirically the fundamental role of climate finance as a foremost tool of action by climate advocacy institutions to curb global climate change risks to promote sustainable economic development. The major objective of the paper was to examine whether climate policy affects the development of climate finance. The paper adopted a quantitative approach by using two different analysis namely the OLS linear regression model and the Granger Causality tests, at an alpha () of 0.05. Research data were from the World Bank Carbon Finance Unit and from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change archives. Results from the linear relationship analysis using the OLS indicated a positive and significant relationship between climate policy evolution and carbon finance development at a significance of P value less than 0.05 (P

This study related the influence of foreign direct investment inflow on income inequality in South Africa. The paper applied the co-integration regression and used the FDI inflow and income inequality data in South Africa for 2005-2015 to determine. Findings from the Augmented Dickey- Fully (ADF) test showed that increase in FDI inflow has (nonetheless not significant) broadened inequality in South Africa during the period of analysis. In addition, a test for a unit root in uhat arising from the Engle-Granger co-integration relationship test applied the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test. The result indicates that, within the time series examined, there is no long-run relationship between income inequality and foreign direct investment inflow to South Africa. The paper recommends that further research should examine likely effect of governance on income inequality by introducing governance variable into the co-integration regression model to see whether democratic governance in South Africa may have contributed in widening income inequality. Further research might also examine the characteristics of foreign direct investment inflow into the country to see whether it possesses certain attributes such as manufacturing FDI, which could create job for local citizens.

This paper evaluates the bond and share value relationship to provide additional information for investors’ decisions regarding investments in bonds and shares. It used bond and share values from one large advanced economy stock market (Japan) and from one developing economy stock market (Kenya). The paper is pertinent, as little prior research has combined advanced and developing economy stock market in such analysis. Applying a panel data with the OLS regression, it found that in both the advanced and developing economy stock markets, a significant but negative relationship exists between the share values and bond values. This thus provides a practical information for bond and share investors to know when to dive into a particular investment and to the academia for research and academic inquisition. The paper provides an agenda for further research to expand this analysis by pooling together a number of large advanced economy stock markets and a number of developing economy stock markets. Such future research would determine the degree with which one of the variables (bond value or share value), affect each other in advanced and developing economies – to provide more information to international stock speculators.

This paper aimed to illustrate how short-term carbon futures speculators might use short-term carbon emission futures data to predict and forecast carbon prices. The paper became apposite given ubiquitous research focussing on long-term carbon futures data, which has left out short-term carbon emission futures speculators with information. Therefore, this paper demonstrated that short-term speculators in carbon futures could indeed use short-term time series data on carbon futures to make a reliable prediction and forecasting of carbon emissions futures price volatility within a short term and thus decide on investment opportunity. The sample data results showed that short-term data could produce a dependable in-sample futures prediction since the in-sample prediction fell within the 95% confidence interval. The demonstration also showed that short-term carbon futures data could assist speculators to conduct a reliable short-term out of sample forecast of carbon futures prices within the closer period. The paper offers practical assistance to carbon futures speculators and is equally important for academic studies for business and economic students on discussions and research bordering on carbon emissions, carbon trading, environmental economics and sustainable development. More carbon short-term forecasting is encouraged – such research should compare short-term forecasting of carbon futures amongst different carbon markets.

This paper rummages the stock price fluctuations in periods of corporate acquisition and control. The paper became pertinent to provide information to the corporate board of directors and investors to improve decision making by understanding the inherent fluctuations and the concomitant uncertainties during periods of corporate acquisitions and control negotiations. The main aim of the paper is to examine if there is a significant difference in stock price fluctuation before and during periods of corporate acquisition. The methodological approach is quantitative and used the statistical T-test of difference in mean stock price differences before and during periods of SABMiller acquisition. It also applied the cointegration analysis to establish a correlation in stock price between the acquiring company and the company under acquisition. The analysis was tested at an alpha of 0.05 and results from the statistical analysis disclosed a significant difference to the degree of P

This paper analysed the employment risk-effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow in South Africa for the periods 1991 to 2014. The paper is an attempt to contribute to the growing debate on the role of FDI in economic development, but specifically on employment. The paper applied a quantitative method and used time series data from the World Bank development indicators. The ordinary least square (OLS) regression statistics was used to analyse the relationship between FDI and employment in South Africa for 1991 – 2014. Consistent with some previous research findings, results showed that during the period of study, FDI showed a negative relationship with employment – a growth in FDI had a negative effect on local employment by 1.29 percent. The paper thus highlights that if FDI does not received proper strategy, the host country may run the risk of not benefitting economically from FDI. This unexpected result can be attributed to some causes, which include inter alia reduction in domestic productivity because of FDI, the nature of FDI and the host country regulation of FDI. The paper suggests further research on the role of FDI on domestic productivity in South Africa

This research evaluates the role of environmental pressure on the extend of environmental disclosure of South African banks. Although much research on corporate sustainability disclosure exists, this research is unique since little of the previous research in South Africa has given a closer examination of environmental pressure implication on the banking sector environmental disclosure. Research data were collected from secondary source, which are available from the sustainability reports of the sample of banks. Data were arranged and analyzed by means of the panel data multiple regression. Findings from the analysis showed that none of the seven environmental pressure variables had a significant relationship with banks’ environmental disclosure, which confirms assertion in the literature that banks are not much concerned with environmental issues. In conclusion, the research made some recommendations, which include that future researchers should expand the number of banks by including other financial institutions. Additionally, more research should be conducted to ascertain why external pressure is not very effective in motivating banks’ environmental disclosure as found in this study. Hence, the suggested question for further research is “what motivates bank’s environmental disclosure” and “do banks internalize or externalize their environmental costs”.

The authors examined environmental responsibility and financial performance nexus of Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s socially responsible investing manufacturing and mining firms during the period of 2008-2014. The study employs annual panel dataset of fourteen manufacturing and mining companies on the index, and Granger causality analysis using Gcause2 Baum’s version. The paper found unidirectional causal relationship between environmental responsibility, measured by emissions intensity and equity returns, and bidirectional causal relationship between emissions intensity and market value of equity deflated by sales at 1% significant levels. Impliedly, improvements in ‘energy efficient technologies’ to reduce fossil energy consumption (prevention activities) seem to exhibit value destroying tendencies, while improvements in ‘end-of-pipe’ activities seem to estimate a drive market value of equity deflated by sales and equity returns. The Pesaran CD and Breusch-Pagan LM tests confirmed existence of cross-sectional dependence amongst panel members. The authors tend to support institutional and stakeholder theories.

South Africa’s reserve played a vital economic defence role during the economic crises of the recent past. However, little research has examined the relationship between export value and the reserve of South Africa. This paper contributes by assessing the impact of four independent variables (export value, government effectiveness, foreign direct investment and GDP) on the reserve of South Africa. Data were from the World Bank Archives of Global Financial Indicators and from the World Bank Archives of Governance Indicators from 1996 to 2014. A cointegration and the OLS regression test showed a long run relationship between export value, government effectiveness, foreign direct investment and the reserve of South Africa. The Granger causality test revealed that foreign reserve may influence export value (unidirectional), and that reserve may enhance government effectiveness. The paper offers policy recommendations that may improve the level of reserve and provides an agenda for further research.