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on Africa |
| By: | Van de Laar, Mindel (UNU-MERIT); Achrekar, Shivani (UNU-MERIT); Larbi, Lucy (UNU-MERIT); Rühmann, Friederike (UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | Globally the field of doctoral education is changing, with a move towards more internationalisation and away from traditional education. More PhD educational programmes use blended and e-learning elements and have an increasing number of working professionals enrolled in a PhD, or PhD students with jobs engaged in writing a dissertation. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the PhD scene reflects this change. Yet, not much is known about PhD capacity in Africa. While in terms of scientific output the continent is left behind, and thus doctoral education is an area to focus on, research on the effectiveness of doctoral education, and how to improve the educational offering is lacking. In this study, we offer an update of the literature related to doctoral education in Africa, an overview of the needs in the field according to both African PhD fellows and their supervisors, and a discussion on the role of e-learning innovations in supporting capacity building. |
| Keywords: | Doctoral education, community of learning, Sub-Sahara Africa, E-Learning |
| JEL: | O15 O55 I23 I24 I25 I26 |
| Date: | 2016–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2016068&r=afr |
| By: | Bonga-Bonga, Lumengo; Mabe, Queen Magadi |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the degree of financial integration between three African trading blocs, namely, the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The paper suggests a measure of financial integration based on the combination of the dynamic conditional correlation-general autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (DCC-GARCH) and factor models. The results of the empirical analysis show that not all countries within each of the three trading blocs are integrated to their regional factors. Moreover, the finding of the paper shows a ‘decoupling’ between some of the trading blocs. Robustness test is conducted to support the results of the empirical analysis and shows that the proposed method provides a better way to measure integration than other methods, such as the multi-factor R-square method proposed by Pukthuanthong and Roll (2009). |
| Keywords: | Financial integration, African trading blocs, factor model, DCC GARCH |
| JEL: | C55 C58 F36 |
| Date: | 2016–12–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75716&r=afr |
| By: | Pramod Kumar Naik (Department of Economics, The Central University of Rajasthan, India); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.); Puja Padhi (Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India) |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the relationship between equity trading volume and returns volatility for the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) of South Africa using daily data over the period of 6th July 2006 to 31st August 2016. Further, we analyzed an after-crisis period, i.e., 1/04/2008 to 8/31/2016, in order to verify the findings immediately after the sub-prime crisis. EGARCH and Granger causality models were employed to analyse the volume-volatility relationship. Also the level of volatility persistence has been compared before and after the inclusion of trading volume in the volatility model as an exogenous variable. The analysis shows that the JSE exhibits volatility asymmetry implying that the return volatility responds more to the bad news than the good news. The relationship between trading volume and market volatility is found to be positive and contemporaneous supporting the mixture of distribution hypothesis. But lagged volume is found to be statistically insignificant in explaining volatility. We also uncover that the volatility persistence remains high even after the inclusion of trading volume as an explanatory variable in the volatility model. The above set of results also holds for the post-crisis sub-sample. Furthermore, the pairwise Granger causality tests indicate a feedback relationship between volume and volatility only in the case of the sub-sample. But for the full sample we find a unidirectional causality between volume and volatility, with trading volume Granger causes market volatility. |
| Keywords: | Asymmetric volatility, Trading volume, EGARCH, South Africa, Volatility persistence |
| JEL: | G11 G12 C58 |
| Date: | 2016–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201689&r=afr |
| By: | Slawa Rokicki; Cohen, Jessica; Joshua A. Salomon; Fink, , Günther |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qsh:wpaper:482096&r=afr |
| By: | El-Baz, Osama |
| Abstract: | The Egyptian economy has witnessed a plunge in its main macroeconomic indicators after the Arab spring as reflected in the estimated Economic Stability Trend Index (ESTI). The main purpose of the paper was to estimate Egypt's potential output and identify the factors that might be responsible for the divergence of actual and potential output from each other. The production function approach was used to derive estimates of both potential output and output gap over the period (1990-2014). The results of the analysis revealed that capital stock was the dominant factor contributing to potential GDP growth in Egypt, while the shares of both labor and total factor productivity in potential GDP growth rate have been fluctuating over time. Intellectual property protection, efficiency of the legal framework in settling disputes, strength of investor protection, and other factors exhibited a strong positive relationship with output gap in Egypt over the period (2010-2014). |
| Keywords: | Potential Output, Output Gap, Production Function, HP Filter |
| JEL: | E1 E17 E2 E22 E6 |
| Date: | 2016–11–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:75778&r=afr |