Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Access to loans'

Abstract Business financing is crucial to the development and performance of small and medium enterprises (SME) in developing countries. Obtaining loans by SMEs in Jordan is vital for creating employment, reducing poverty ratio, and augmenting SMEs growth. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to discover strategies SME owners use to access credit. The population comprised of 3 SME owners in Jordan who successfully accessed credit. The conceptual frameworks for this study were the social capital theory and the pecking order theory. Data were gathered using semistructured interviews and companies' archived records. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis; three themes emerged to include sources of finance, education and skills, and social networking. The implications for positive social change include the potential to help SME leaders develop strategies to stabilize and grow their businesses. Business growth can create jobs and decrease poverty in Jordan.

Ecuadorian farmers do not play the investment game (Berg 1995) the same with community farmers as they do with agricultural technicians. Women exhibit a preference for trust in agricultural technicians (vertical trust). Using experimental and survey data from 191 farmers we examine factors associated with 1) farmer trust in community farmers, 2) farmer trust in agricultural technicians, and 3) differences between levels of trust in agricultural technicians and community farmers. Then we explore how our measures of trust correlate with pesticide knowledge and purchase of pesticide safety equipment; in addition, we consider how our measures of trust correlate with accessing bank loans. Farmers who place more trust in community farmers score lower on our pesticide knowledge exam and they are less likely to adopt our pesticide safety equipment technology. We find that farmers who exhibit a preference for trusting agricultural technicians score higher on our pesticide knowledge exam; they are also more likely to report having accessed a bank loan.<br>Master of Science

The study investigated on the channels of poverty reduction in Malawi, using household data aggregated at district level. Malawi is divided into 31 districts with different demographics and opportunities. Macro level data which was calculated in terms of district percentages were used in the study. The study emanated from the premise of the link between economic growth and poverty reduction. With the trend of growth that was seen in Malawi from 2004 to 2012; there was an interest to further investigate if there had been any significant change in the poverty levels as measured in the country by the National Statistical office. The objectives of the study were two pronged; the theoretical and the imperial. The theoretical objectives were; to provide a background of Malawi, to review the literature on poverty theories, to review the literature on the link between poverty reduction and the channels of potential impact, namely: economic growth, education attainment, access to loans and enterprises, agricultural production, population growth and employment or unemployment. The empirical objectives on the other hand were; to investigate if there has been any poverty reduction in the years 1998 to 2012 in Malawi, to assess how economic growth at a district level proxied by agriculture production and land holding affect poverty at district level in Malawi, to assess how education attainment affect poverty reduction at a district level in Malawi, conduct an analysis on how employment or unemployment affect poverty reduction at a district level. Also investigate the relationship between access to loan and poverty reduction in Malawi and to determine if different poverty measures exhibit statistically significant different responses to channels under investigation namely economic growth, education levels, population growth and access to loans at district level. The study employed descriptive and regression analysis to arrive at the results for the set empirical objectives. Due to the fact that panel data was used for districts, a random effects regression model was used for the estimations. A Breusch-Pagan test was used to decide on random effects as opposed to fixed effects model. The results from the regressions showed that all the channels that were hypothesised to be of importance, came out significant from objective based regressions. These regressions were run separately for each channel, with the district poverty rate as a dependent variable. The study found the considered channels of poverty reduction to be significant at different levels. First, it was established that there has been significant growth in Malawi. This growth however was seen to be erratic where in other years it was higher and in other years lower. A more important conclusion from the first objective was that there had been poverty reduction in the country between 1998 and 2012. A t test was also used for mean difference in the years where Integrated Household surveys were conducted namely, 1998, 2004 and 2012. The t-test showed a statistically significant reduction in poverty between 1998 and 2012 of up to 15.07. The study also found that the relationship between agricultural production and poverty was significant especially looking at local maize production which had a negative significant coefficient. Implying that, an increase in agricultural production has an associated reduction in the district poverty rate. It was also established from the results that input subsidy had a significant impact on poverty at district level. This input programme which helps poor households to access fertilizer at a highly subsidised price had a negative relationship with poverty that was significant. This shows that government’s effort in funding the national wide fertilizer subsidy has some bearing on the poverty level of the country. On the relationship between education and poverty reduction, the study also found a significant relationship. This was clear on the impact of literacy rate on poverty reduction. The regression results showed a significant negative relationship between literacy rate and poverty reduction. The channels of employment in poverty reduction was found to be significant but in a direction unexpected. Labour force participation had a positive influence on poverty rate at district level. A number of things were discovered; first the employment rate as reported in the statistical year book is misleading. What is considered employment in these statistics is basically subsistence farmers who take up more than 80% of the employment rate. Second, most of what is recorded as employment is non-skill labour with people without education recoding a 99% employment rate. This is a misleading record in as far as what employment for poverty reduction is concerned. It is therefore not a surprise that, most of the people reported as employed are also found below the poverty line some even below the ultra-poverty line. A special contribution resulting from the study is the framework on the interconnection between the channels. The study points out the fact that for agricultural production to thrive there is need for education. Also for agricultural production to succeed there is need for the farmers to have access to loans. the study discovered that more than 45 percept of the loans people obtained were for agricultural inputs. There is also a link between education and employment, education and access to loans and access to loans and employment through business start-ups that create employment. The conclusion of the study is that policies that are intended to reduce poverty should be aimed at promoting education participation. There is also need to create an environment that enables the poor to access loans and credits at a reasonable interest rate. The government should continue with the input subsidy programme for the poor household. There is need for the national statistical office to reconsider the definition of employment so that the government works with practical figures, other than the inflated employment rates that are reported in the statistical year book.<br>PhD (Economics), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:23:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Abmael da Cruz farias.pdf: 2997530 bytes, checksum: d71e9cc245d62ad2ecb029c42c1c0495 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-24<br>The objective of this paper is to study public policies regarding higher education, beneficiaries, objectives, and results in Vitória da Conquista, Bahia for the year of 2008: FIES (Student Loans Program) and PROUNI (Program of Higher Education for All). This paper focuses on undergraduate studies and attempts to evaluate these programs in terms of their efficiency and effectiveness as they have facilitated access for millions of Brazilians with repercussions pertaining to students´ income and availability of financial resources. This assessment is unprecedented and aims at producing data for these programs. Findings can be used by decision makers, both to draw up and implement policies, as well as by the program beneficiaries. This study raises the hypothesis that these programs have been both effective and efficient in democratizing students´ access to higher education by considering them as citizens or consumers, a situation that was made possible with the democratization of educational services to higher education institutions. These ideas were confirmed by this research through analysis of the documentation of the education institutes participating in the study, information posted on their official websites, and applied questionnaires. Therefore, this study is exploratory in nature and incorporates information collected through literature as well as documentation from which both quantitative and qualitative data were produced. Debates around this issue rise from the analysis of the relationship between public and private spaces and also involve issues related to social justice, democratization of opportunities, citizenship, and gratuity on the one hand and consumption and payment on the other hand, all related to higher education<br>Esta dissertação tem como objeto de estudo as políticas públicas em educação superior, beneficiários, objetivos e resultados, em Vitória da Conquista, Bahia, em 2008: FIES e PROUNI, priorizando o ensino de graduação presencial, buscando avaliar tais programas, sob o aspecto da eficácia e efetividade. Isso se justifica porque eles têm facilitado o acesso de milhões de brasileiros, atuando sobre a renda e disponibilidade de recursos dos estudantes. Essa avaliação é uma tarefa inédita e visa produzir informações sobre esses programas. Elas podem ajudar à tomada de decisão de quem os elabora e aplica ou de quem deles se beneficia. Este estudo levanta as hipóteses de que esses programas têm sido eficázes e efetivos na democratização do acesso a educação superior para os estudantes, tratando-os, alternadamente, como cidadãos ou consumidores; o que se tornou possível com a democratização da prestação de serviços educacionais de terceiro grau para as instituições de ensino superior. Hipoteses que se confirmaram como resultado da pesquisa. Ao responder as questões propostas foram analisados documentos das instituições, além de sitios oficiais e questionários aplicados. Esta pesquisa tem, portanto, carater exploratório, incorporando ainda, levantamentos de natureza bibliográfica e documental, a partir dos quais se produziu informações com características quantitativas e qualitativas. Os debates sobre esse tema originam-se a partir da análise da relação entre os espaços públicos e privados, tocando ainda na questão da justiça social, democractização das oportunidades de vida, cidadania e gratuidade, de um lado, consumo e pagamento, do outro. Todos ligados a educação superior

Mestrado em Economia Internacional e Estudos Europeus<br>Considerada por muitos um factor de agravamento do fosso entre os países periféricos e os do núcleo da ZE, vários autores têm-se debruçado sobre as repercussões da crise financeira global no acesso das PME a financiamento externo. Através duma análise comparativa incidente nos casos português e alemão, o presente TFM aborda esta questão, analisando a evolução dos empréstimos bancários para as PME destes dois países, e tenta descortinar quais as determinantes que podem justificar as diferenças observadas nos dois momentos temporais identificados na investigação, nomeadamente em 2008/2009 e em 2011/2012. Os dados secundários utilizados sugerem que a evolução do nível de actividade económica é a variável que melhor parece explicar a evolução dos empréstimos em ambos os países. Contudo, verifica-se alguma restrição do lado da oferta de empréstimos para as PME portuguesas, não observável na Alemanha. Esta constatação evidencia a maior dificuldade de PME portuguesas viáveis se financiarem a condições favoráveis à recuperação económica e crescimento sustentável deste país.<br>Considered by many a contributing factor to the widening of the gap between peripheral countries and the ones from the EA core, several authors have been focusing on the impacts of the global financial crisis in SME access to external financing. Using a comparative analysis based on the Portuguese and German cases, this master thesis studies this problem, analyzing the evolution of bank loans for SME from these countries, while trying to encounter the root causes of the observed differences between the two time periods considered in the investigation, namely the years of 2008/2009 and 2011/2012. The secondary data used suggests that the evolution of the level of economic activity is the variable that better seems to explain the evolution of loans in both countries. However, there are some restrictions in loan approvals for Portuguese SME, which are not verified in the German side. This fact reinforces the greater difficulty of viable Portuguese SME in obtaining financing, in conditions favorable to the economic recovery and sustainable growth of Portugal.

The Open Access movement seeks to make scholarly, peer-reviewed journal articles freely available to anyone, anywhere over the World Wide Web. There were some very significant developments in the area of Open Access (OA) in 2004, including statements by major funders in support of Open Access. There are now so many Open Access scholarly journal articles freely available, that, in the author’s opinion, being aware of, and using, the resources and related tools is now essential for libraries. Libraries can provide more resources faster for users by supplementing paid resources with ones that are Open Access. Library resources, such as link resolvers, are beginning to incorporate Open Access materials and web searches for Open Access materials. For example, the reSearcher software suite includes Open Access collections along with subscription-based resources in the CUFTS journals knowledgebase, and a web search for an Open Access copy of an article in the GODOT link resolver. SFX also incorporates Open Access journals. After exhausting more traditional resources, interlibrary loans staff are beginning to include Google searching in their workflow. This article will discuss what Open Access is, the dramatic growth of Open Access, and major collections, resources and tools. Implications, issues, and leadership opportunities for resource sharing specialists will be explored.

Access to financial resources is considered to be the most constraining feature for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Many researchers describe networking as an essential factor for accessing a bank loan as SMEs seek to access to resources for development. Thus, the objective of this paper is, describe the network impact on accessing a bank loan in Iran and Sweden as well as the similarities and differences in the Iranian and Swedish lending process. Lack of literature in this field was the main reason for choosing one developed and one developing country. Based on the theory which is developed by the author, the impact of networking on accessing a bank loan is examining. Multiple case studies were implemented to gather the necessary information. By interviewing personnel in eight banks in Iran and Sweden and eight SMEs in both countries, this study was conducted. The results reveal that social and official networking could provide easier access to a bank loan in both countries. In addition, only in Sweden would networking with a manager of customer influence the outcome. Further, the results indicate that the principle of the lending process is the same in both countries. The main differences in the lending process are included the interest rate, the number of decision makers and supporting different sectors.

This project defines a concept, “attention to quality,” and proposes that legislative attention to quality is a dependent variable that political science can use to evaluate the content of representation the political system offers, specifically to trace a means by which politics may influence household exposure to financial risk and possibly income inequality. Upstream of regulation or other formal policy solutions, attention to quality is observable consideration of the possibility that a good poses risk, or fails to shield consumers from risk, due to features of its own design. The project studies congressional attention to quality for three privately-vended, middle-class goods with the capacity to impact household risk exposure: health insurance, home loans, and prescription drugs. It also examines attention to quality in risk-modulating pieces of the welfare-state, taking Medicare as an example. The project explicitly contrasts attention to quality with attention to access for each good. Second, based on original datasets, this project reports robust evidence that legislative attention to access exceeds legislative attention to quality for the privately vended goods, particularly insurance and loans. It finds the reverse true of welfare-state goods. In doing so, the project contributes new quantitative evidence to the emergent body of research in American politics on how political processes, as opposed to strictly the macro-economy, may influence household financial insecurity. Third, the project makes progress in uncovering the underpinnings of quality attention. It finds senator attention to quality linked to partisan considerations—particularly the other political party’s degree of dominance in quality talk—in ways that appear to depress quality attention for privately-vended goods but buoy it for welfare-state goods. Quality’s visibility to the public appears to heighten the degree to which legislators consider the other party’s degree of dominance in quality talk when deciding whether to give quality attention. These patterns occur against a backdrop of what appears to be electorally-minded access attention: incumbents attend to the access facet of privately-vended goods as reelection dates approach, while not exhibiting such behavior around the quality facet. These findings have implications for research on congressional agenda setting and representation.

This dissertation focuses on the unique aspects of Maltese morphology brought about by its genetic and geographic history. The experiments conducted and described here build on past research in Indo-European languages and new research in other Semitic languages to determine how different word formation systems function. Applying experimental techniques to the study of Maltese is crucial for two reasons. First, though Maltese is a Semitic language, recent extensive contact with English has greatly impacted its vocabulary and the structure of its verbs. Though the effects of persistent language contact is pervasive, clear and systematic differences may be observed between native Semitic verbs and those borrowed from English. Secondly, unlike other Semitic languages, the Maltese writing system uses the Roman alphabet. This allows for tests that require the reading of written stimuli to be performed in the same writing system as previous studies in Indo-European languages, eliminating a number of confounding factors.A masked priming experiment asked Maltese speakers to judge whether or not test items were words of their language. The test items included real and nonce verbs of both Semitic and English origin. Accuracy rates and reaction time were recorded and compared across speakers. The results of this experiment support the psychological salience of the consonantal root as a unit of lexical organization.An elicitation experiment asked native speakers of Maltese to provide a verb form that corresponded to a given noun or adjective. The test items were nouns of Semitic and English origin and non-words constructed to resemble such nouns. Responses were broadly transcribed and analyzed for their similarity to the expected patterns. The results show that speakers are able to use two morphological strategies to form new words. The factors affecting the choice between morphological systems include linguistic structure and social variables.Collectively, this pair of experiments indicate that the consonantal root is a viable morphological and psychological unit of lexical organization, supporting a search-based approach to lexical access. Furthermore, speakers are able to form new words on the basis of whole words, showing that this level of organization must also be present to facilitate lexical access.

Most of the scholars argue that the big challenge for the SMEs in order to grow is access to finance. They consider financing as the most crucial need of a growing company. Based on the previous researches, companies need to move from the internal financing to the external financing through growth. In this situation, one way for SMEs is, to take advantage of a bank loan; however, many researchers argue that accessing a bank loan is not easy for SMEs. On the other hand, in the last decade since the number of SMEs increased in many countries, tendency of the banks, regarding cooperation with SMEs; gets increased as well. Although, many of the SMEs are still not satisfied with the lending process. Thus, this study investigates if some factors can have an effect on the lending process. Since, the factors which affect the lending process are various, the purpose of this study is, to examine how having an appropriate business growth plan could be helpful in order to have access to a bank loan. There is a lack of literature regarding observation of this process in developing countries and comparing the lending process in developing countries with developed countries, this paper will examine the lending process and influence of business growth plan in one developed country (Sweden), and one developing country (Iran) and compare all the systems with each other. In order to achieve the required information, multiple case study was chosen. The main result of this study is that a business growth plan has a different effect on the lending process in each country, since it is seen as a positive sign in Iran while it has both an advantage and disadvantage in Sweden.

Submitted by Luiz Claudio Ferreira Sacramento Junior (luizclaudiosacramento@hotmail.com) on 2017-05-22T23:07:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation_final version.docx: 377515 bytes, checksum: c5d360cbf921b7c3982e47f2705d59f4 (MD5)<br>Approved for entry into archive by ÁUREA CORRÊA DA FONSECA CORRÊA DA FONSECA (aurea.fonseca@fgv.br) on 2017-05-23T19:21:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation_final version.docx: 377515 bytes, checksum: c5d360cbf921b7c3982e47f2705d59f4 (MD5)<br>Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-30T18:56:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertation_final version.docx: 377515 bytes, checksum: c5d360cbf921b7c3982e47f2705d59f4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-28<br>This paper shows how information sharing mechanisms might enable Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) to increase their access to formal credit markets. Using a unique dataset provided by the Brazilian Central Bank and Ministry of Labor, a change is applied in the threshold of loans that must be reported and shared by all active financial institutions as a gradual increase in the available information on MSEs. Results suggest that borrowers that benefited by this change obtained more loans and smaller interest rates, and by building a good client pool ended up receiving smaller maturities. Firms were also less likely to delay repayments and present smaller loan losses. This evidence sheds light on information asymmetry and literature on financial inclusion by showing that information sharing mechanisms can improve the decision to offer credit, and MSEs can become less dependent of relationship lending to obtain loans.<br>Esse estudo mostra como mecanismos de compartilhamento de informação podem permitir Micro e Pequenas Empresas (MPEs) podem melhorar seu acesso a mercados de crédito formais. Utilizando uma base de dados única obtida junto ao Banco Central do Brasil e Ministério do Trabalho, uma mudança é aplicada no limite do valor de empréstimos que precisam ser reportados e compartilhados por todas as instituições financeiras ativas como uma mudança gradual na informação disponível sobre MPEs. Os resultados indicam que tomadores de empréstimo que se beneficiaram dessa mudança obtiveram mais empréstimos e menores taxas de juros, e por constituir um bom grupo de clientes acabam por receber menores vencimentos. As empresas são ainda menos prováveis de atrasar seus pagamentos e apresentam menores perdas aos bancos. As consequências desse estudo lançam luz sobre a literatura de assimetria de informação e inclusão financeira ao mostrar que mecanismos de compartilhamento de informação podem auxiliar na decisão de oferecer crédito e MPEs podem se tornar menos dependentes de empréstimos de relacionamento para obter empréstimos.

Mestrado em Métodos Quantitativos para a Decisão Económica e Empresarial<br>Um grande número de literatura empírica emergiu para abordar as condicionantes do acesso ao crédito por parte das Sociedades Não Financeiras (SNF). A dificuldade de acesso ao financiamento é um dos principais entraves ao investimento e à competitividade das empresas, o espelho do sucesso da atividade económica de um país. Com este trabalho pretendo evidenciar quais os determinantes que explicam o acesso aos novos empréstimos bancários entre 2012 e 2016, de forma a disponibilizar instrumentos às empresas que permitam uma gestão mais eficiente. Com este fim, analisei os efeitos das caraterísticas das empresas e dos novos empréstimos bancários no montante total e médio dos empréstimos de cada empresa, a dividir pelo total do ativo médio, durante o período em causa, através de regressões lineares múltiplas. As conclusões mais importantes foram: a taxa de juro, o número de pessoas, o volume de negócios, o capital social e a existência de colateral influenciam negativamente as variáveis dependentes, enquanto que a dimensão, o rating das empresas e os empréstimos bancários concedidos por bancos grandes têm uma influência positiva. Detetou-se a existência de efeitos não lineares através de termos de interação entre as variáveis explicativas. Depois da aplicação de testes específicos em algumas regressões, detetou-se evidência de heterocedasticidade, tendo sido necessário aplicar o estimador robusto de White.<br>A large number of empirical literature emerged to address the constraints of access to credit by Non-Financial Corporations (NFC). The difficulty of access to finance is one of the main obstacles to investment and to the competitiveness of companies, a mirror of the success of a country's economic activity. With this work, I intend to highlight the determinants that explain the access to new bank loans between 2012 and 2016, in order to provide instruments to companies that allow a more efficient management. To this end, I analyzed the effects of the companies' characteristics and new bank loans on the total and average loans of each company, divided by the total average assets during the period, through multiple linear regressions. The most important conclusions were: interest rate, number of people, turnover, share capital and the existence of collateral negatively influence the dependent variables, while size, corporate rating and bank lending by large banks have a positive influence. Nonlinear effects were detected through terms of interaction between the explanatory variables. After the application of specific tests in some regressions, evidence of heteroscedasticity was detected, requiring the application of White's robust estimator.<br>info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Bibliography: p. 175-197.<br>Academic libraries in South Africa are facing the challenge of tighter budgets, increasing student enrolments, greater diversity in students' backgrounds and library experience, and a call for greater accountability to all the stakeholders. The effectiveness of a library service can be measured in terms of the availability and accessibility of library materials, two attributes of a library's document delivery capability. This study focused on the availability of prescribed materials for undergraduate students in an academic library. It involved a micro-evaluation of the immediate materials availability rate in a short loan collection, by using a combination of a quantitative simulation study, and a qualitative user survey. Generally, the availability rates determined were high, which suggests a high degree of collection adequacy. However, the user study confirmed that many SLC users experienced difficulties in using the system, indicating a need for continuous user education programmes and constant dialogue between the staff and the users concerning future service improvements. The study indicated that overall materials availability rates can be misleading if accepted at face value. A introspective analysis of the reasons for the non-availability of high-demand materials revealed hidden access barriers such as poor information retrieval skills on the part of the users and certain inefficient organisational procedures on the part of the library. The study reiterates the fundamental importance of constructive communication between the various stakeholders in meeting the educational goals of the institution and the necessity of regular library performance evaluation to ensure a dynamic, proactive service. The coexistence of print-based and electronic resources in the forseeable future underscores the importance of convenience and accessibility factors in making required documents available to the users.

Apibendrinant statistinius duomenis gauta išvada, kad teikiamų paskolų portfelis iš Valstybinio studijų fondo nuolat auga. Galima teigti, kad Lietuvos studentai drąsiai naudojasi teikiamomis fondo paslaugomis. Atlikto tyrimo duomenys parodė, kad daugiausia gautų paskolų Lietuvos edukologijos universiteto Socialinių mokslų fakulteto nuolatinių studijų formos studentai skiria mokesčiui už studijas. 72 proc. respondentų nežino apie Valstybinį studijų fondą ir jo veiklą, todėl tyrimo dėmesio centre buvo informatyvumo didinimas. Tiriamieji įvardino, kad sudėtingas yra informacijos apie fondą pasiekimas universitetų svetainėse, todėl, didinant Valstybinio studijų fondo efektyvumą, reikėtų pradėti nuo informatyvumo didinimo. Manoma, kad reikėtų didesnį dėmesį skirti ne tik studentų, bet ir abiturientų, informavimui apie Valstybinį studijų fondą bei ateinančių studentų galimybių panaudojimo aiškinimui.<br>Summary statistics obtained by finding the portfolio of the loans from the State Education Fund is growing. It can be stated that Lithuanian students safely use the provided funding. The survey showed that the majority of the loans in Lithuania University of Education Faculty of Social Sciences full-time studies students give the tuition fee. 72 % of respondents do not know about the State Education Fund and its activity. Therefore, the investigation focused on the informativeness criteria. The respondents mentioned that it is very difficult to find the information about the fund on university sites, thus increasing the efficiency of the State Education Fund Should start with informativeness increasing. It is believed that the administrative staff should pay greater attention to students or even graduates to inform about the State Education Fund, and future students opportunities for loan using.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2003.<br>Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 98 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 94-98). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Thesis (M.M. (Research))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Governance, 2016.<br>Most economies today are calling upon their or rather are starting to rely on their Small and Medium business Enterprises to stimulate the economy and also help address issues of unemployment. However it is also believed that even though this maybe the case, most economies still don’t give SMEs enough funding. The underlying public assumption is that all that is needed for SMEs to thrive is access to funding, as such this study sought to investigate the role of financial access in the success of SMEs. The study had intended to use financial ratios as proxies for success, however, the record keeping of the SMEs or lack thereof impeded this intention, so the study measured the success of the enterprise as perceived by the owner. The study sampled SMEs from all for regions of Swaziland, and besides a descriptive analysis that were carried out to examine the utilization of credit by the SMEs. This study also used a statistical model known as the Logit model, to determine the effect that credit access had on the success of the SME and also assess the challenges/barriers that the SMEs faced when trying to access funding. The results of this study deviated from the underlying public assumption, as they showed that an SME owner that had access to funding had reduced odds of success, if anything the results showed that the success of an SME did not entirely depend on the availability of funding, and there were other potent factors that posed as barriers to financial access.<br>DM2016

Magister Educationis - MEd<br>Cost-sharing is neither a new subject nor a recent practice in the financing of students’ higher education in Zimbabwe. The practice of cost-sharing in Zimbabwe’s higher education dates back to the colonial period. Unlike those African countries that have historically had free higher education, in Zimbabwe cost-sharing has always been part of its higher education financing formulae. As a result, whereas the challenge in other African countries has been to shift from free higher education to cost-sharing, the challenge in Zimbabwe has been that of moving from one cost-sharing model to another. While Zimbabwe has experimented with various cost-sharing strategies, literature on the country’s experiences with the practice is limited. This study fills the knowledge gap by identifying and accounting for the shifts in the conception and practice of cost-sharing in the financing of students’ higher education in Zimbabwe. Consistent with the study’s focus on describing and understanding historical processes (shifts in cost-sharing policy over time) in higher education financing in Zimbabwe, a qualitative approach was adopted to gather and analyze data. In particular, the study used an historical research design to identify and account for the policy shifts in higher education financing in Zimbabwe from 1957 to 2009. The scope of the study was limited to student funding in the public university sector. The study used documents as the major sources of data, while interviews and focus group discussions with key actors in higher education financing in Zimbabwe provided additional data to validate data generated from document sources. The study demonstrates that Zimbabwe adopted cost-sharing in higher education financing at the very point of inception of the first university in the country, the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which is now the University of Zimbabwe in 1957. Starting (in 1957) with a deferred tuition fee policy that was complemented by a mortgage type loan system and government grants, a confluence of global, national and local forces combined in specific fashion in specific historical epochs over time to ‘negotiate’ and ‘renegotiate’ the student funding models. It is further shown that during the colonial era, while the cost-sharing model rode on the back of a favourable Government loan and grant system aimed at promoting access to higher education, the racist basis of colonial education policies created bottlenecks that severely curtailed access to higher education by the majority black population. Colonial education policy iii regimes deliberately limited the feeding streams into university enrolments by black students, resulting in a proportional mismatch between the number of white students entering university and that of black students. Thus, during the colonial era, access to higher education was largely a function of the ‘barrier’ system in African education that defined inequality between whites and Africans. Independence in 1980 saw the new socialist government embracing the loan and grant based cost-sharing model and further implementing radical measures to democratize access to education. However, the increase in student numbers and in higher education institutions, coupled with poor loan recovery, and the ascendancy of neoliberalism at about the turn of the twenty-first century presented serious challenges to the state’s capacity to adequately fund higher education. In the process, the loan and grant system declined gradually and was eventually replaced by an upfront tuition fee policy that took a toll on access to higher education. Noting the inadequacies of policy interventions through the introduction of the Cadetship Scheme, the ‘successor’ to the loan and grant system, the study recommends the resuscitation of the loan system. It is however, important that such reintroduction of the loan system be predicated on the development of a robust framework that ensures that loans are allocated to students who are in real financial need and that there is in existence, effective and efficient loan recovery machinery.

Thesis (M.S.) -- University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2005.<br>Title from title page screen (viewed on June 30, 2005). Thesis advisor: J. Harold Deatherage. Document formatted into pages (vii, 43 p. : ill. (some col.)). Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-42).

碩士<br>聖約翰科技大學<br>工業工程與管理系碩士班<br>99<br>The memory chip manufacturing of semiconductor industry is the most competitive industries in Taiwan. The technology of designing memory chips has becoming increasingly sophisticated and the chip size is getting more compact. The visual inspection during the manufacturing process is a high labor-intensive job that is unable completely replaced by machines. The purpose of this study was to examine the visual inspection at the Dynamic Random Access Memory workstations in the long time and highly repetitive work environment, and to assess the labor visual fatigue and musculoskeletal load on visual inspection workers. Analyzing workstation layouts and their design criteria to improve the inspection performance can provide the semiconductor industry as a reference. The plant site observation study and experimental research were conducted in this study. The experiment used three factors randomization complete block design. The factors include a desktop or headset magnifier glass, elbow above from the desktop 0 cm, 5 cm, 10 cm in three operating heights, and with or without backrest chair of workstation layout. The Electromyography sensors and goniometers were used to assess the work load by measuring the shoulder trapezius muscle strength and neck f1exion angles of the workload. The inspection performance was evaluated at the same time. The results show that the inspector on the visual inspection station using a desktop magnifying glass, a chair with backrest, elbow above from the desktop 5 cm can alleviate fatigue and enhance the inspection performance.

M.Comm.<br>The purpose of this dissertation is to assess the progress that has been made in the provision of housing finance to low-income earners. In 1994, housing affordability was constrained, as around 86% of households earned below R3 500. The focus, therefore, is on the role played by both government and the four major banks in broadening access to housing finance for these households and also those who earn less than R7 500. Frameworks that brought about certain initiatives aimed at addressing this problem are explored. On the side of government, the housing subsidy scheme and the role played by the government housing finance institutions (i.e. the National Housing Finance Corporation and the Rural Housing Loan Fund) are explored. On the banking sector side, the provisioning of housing finance prior to and after the implementation of the Financial Sector Charter (FSC) in 2004 is investigated. The dissertation concludes by looking the challenges that exist in the low-cost housing finance environment. The paper notes that, although some considerable progress has been made in the broadening of access to housing finance, there is a huge gap between the number of subsidies approved and the number of households that have benefited from the government subsidy scheme, possibly resulting from, among other things, capacity constraints at local government level. In respect of the banking sector, data analysed shows that bank involvement in the low-income market was very minimal before the implementation of the FSC. However, as much as some progress has been made, there are some serious challenges in this market that could have possibly prevented the role players from extending this access to the rest of the target group.

Dissertação de mestrado em Economia<br>We will study the credit supply effects of the unexpected regulation in capital ratios (LTD ratio) imposed by the Troika under the Economic Adjustment Program for Portugal, using an exhaustive Portuguese loan-level data for SMEs. The introduction of LTDs ratios regulations may force banks to reduce their exposure to credit markets and in order to adequate its balance sheet, banks can reduce lending for firms causing funding problems to companies. In order to evaluate the impact of this regulation, we will have to construct a variable to measure the degree of exposure of firms’ to more or less affected banks. Therefore, we will have to control for several firm-level balance sheet variables and sales to account for market demand. Using data from Central Balance Sheet provided by Banco de Portugal, an extensive dataset containing balance sheet variables for a representative number of firms operating in Portugal, we conclude that in fact the LTD ratio policy had an impact in firms’ investment during the period of analysis.