Analysing legal mobilisation’s potential to secure equal access to socioeconomic justice in South Africa

ABSTRACT

From the moment South Africa became a liberal democracy, the Government promised to deliver on social security for the poor. However, South African NGOs have reported that several barriers prevent poor South Africans, and black women in particular, from accessing the country’s social assistance system. Government inaction has compelled NGOs to approach the Courts. As reflected in a series of court judgements, many problems faced by the system relate to the administration of payments by South African and multinational corporations. But is this the complete story?

Applying a critical, analytical lens of legal mobilisation to explain the potential of legal mobilisation to secure progressive structural change, this article will assess the extent to which civic-based, legal advocacy aimed at securing access to social grants, and challenging the manner in which these grants have been administered, has the potential to more strategically advance socioeconomic justice and inequality for South Africa’s poor.     

Decoupling from China: an economic analysis of the impact on the U.S. economy of a permanent tariff on Chinese imports

Business Economics - America’s pursuit of low-cost overseas production and China’s thirst for export markets have resulted in industrial decline in the U.S. and raised serious questions...     

Increased mandated disclosure frequency and price formation: evidence from the 8-K expansion regulation

Review of Accounting Studies - Regulators claim that increased mandated disclosure frequency should lead to more efficient price formation. However, analytical models suggest that mandating...     

A dynamic analysis of the impacts of export taxes: The case of Argentinean soy and beef markets

Argentina plays an important role in the global soy market as one of the world's leading exporters of soy products. In an effort to shift its agricultural sector's focus to value‐added exports and to raise revenue, Argentina's government has maintained a regime of differential export taxes on soy products. In addition to soy products, Argentina is a major producer, consumer and exporter of beef. However, over the last decade it has relinquished much of its world market share as its beef exports have fallen because the government has periodically imposed a ban on exports of beef along with maintaining an export tax. As the soy and livestock sectors are inextricably linked, owing to both industries’ intensive land use and the utilisation of soymeal as a feed supplement for cattle, trade policies in one sector have pronounced cross‐sectoral impacts. This study develops a theoretical model of these different sectors and trade policies, incorporating the dynamic decisions of cattle stock management. The model is calibrated to real‐world data on the Argentinean economy, and the impacts of trade liberalisation are quantified. Key results show modelling the various intersectoral linkages and the dynamic implications of cattle stock is essential for obtaining accurate estimates.     

The Ex‐Day Price Behavior of REITs: Taxes or Ticks?

Taxes and microstructure constraints are often cited as possible explanations for why stock prices drop by less than the dividend on their ex‐dates. Using a sample of real estate investment trusts, which have no significant correlation between dividend size and yield, we find that close‐to‐open ex‐dividend price drops are related to dividend size as suggested by the microstructure models, but close‐to‐close price drops are related to dividend yield as predicted by the tax theory. These results imply that overnight price drops are primarily determined by microstructure, but that trading during the ex‐day causes prices to adjust to reflect individual tax preferences.     

Neuro‐fuzzy time‐series analysis of large‐volume data

This paper describes a framework that utilizes an adaptive‐network‐based fuzzy inference system to perform user‐constrained pattern recognition on time‐series data. Using a customizable fuzzy logic grammar, the architecture allows an analyst to capture domain expertise in a context‐relevant manner. Fuzzy logic rules constructed by the analyst are used to perform feature extraction and influence the training of a neural network to perform pattern recognition. We demonstrate that the architecture is capable of performing noise‐tolerant searches across multiple features on large volumes of time‐series data. The experiments presented here are from the domain of stock analysis. We are able to create simple rule sets automatically to search a data warehouse of stocks to select stocks that exhibit desirable behaviours. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Are MMMFs money?

Conclusion In the last twenty years, continual financial innovation has led to the increased use of MMMFs as a substitute for checkable deposits. While many technical considerations suggest that it is inappropriate to list MMMFs as money, traditional Austrian thought has emphasized money’s subjective aspects: money is what people think it is. Since the public increasingly uses MMMFs as money substitutes, they are money in all practical respects. Every technical consideration that would restrict the use of MMMFs as a type of money thus crashes against the rocks of practical, everyday experience. While nonbank financial intermediaries can expand this type of money substitute, the Federal Reserve must still provide initial credit for any multiplication to take place. These nonbanks are even more difficult for the Fed to control, for they face no reserve requirements. But, on the other hand, there are more opportunities for leakage from the system, thereby limiting potential credit expansion. Nonetheless, this is an aspect of money that is becoming increasingly important. And if, as seems likely, MMMF expansion stimulates different sectors of the economy than the banking system generally, we should expect to see monetary inflation manifest itself in different ways than previous inflations. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. The author thanks Bryan Caplan for crucial insights on the topic as well as Pete Boettke and an anonymous referee for specific comments. As usual, all remaining mistakes are his.     

The sign value of accounting: IMF structural adjustment programs and African banking reform

This paper examines an IMF structural adjustment program and the role of accounting technologies and agents within that program. Focusing on banking sector reform in Nigeria, the paper shows how IMF attempts to remake economic life come up against formidable contextual challenges, and how accounting may or may not be taken up to confront those challenges. Specifically, it shows that even where accounting numbers are ‘managed’, the potential disciplinary power of accounting's system of signs remains, though again that power may not be exploited if those who are responsible for governing lack the necessary desire. The study's findings challenge two sets of understandings: that which sees the economy as somehow separate or distinct from the wider socio-political field, and that which sees crises such as occurred in Nigeria as simply resulting from inadequate or insufficient accounting regulations and controls.     

Software firm turnarounds in the 1990s: An analysis of reversing decline in a growing,dynamic industry

Investigations into management actions that reverse organizational decline have produced inconsistent findings. Prior studies have focused on the value of retrenchment actions versus strategic actions to engineer a performance turnaround. These studies, however, have generally not controlled for the cause of firm decline, overlooking a major theoretical contingency. Examining prepackaged software firms in the 1990s, we test the association of strategic and retrenchment actions in facilitating turnarounds in a munificent industry. The results show that measures of strategic actions—new product introductions, strategic alliances, and acquisitions—were positively associated with turnarounds. Conversely, measures of retrenchment actions—layoffs, asset reductions, and product withdrawals—were negatively associated with performance recovery. Our results suggest declining firms in munificent industries cannot retrench their way back to prosperity. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.