Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Investments – Zimbabwe'

How a country is perceived by foreign investors is becoming increasingly significant to the ability of individual countries to attract foreign direct investment into their economies. In Africa, existing negative perceptions of the continent as an investment destination have been considered as an obstacle for foreign direct investment inflows to the continent in general. Although Zimbabwe offers foreign investors multiple lucrative investment opportunities, attracting foreign direct investment to the country presents a unique challenge due to the image of the country post the 1998-2008 economic crisis. Despite the vast research on the determinants of foreign direct inflows to particular countries, little is known about whether non-financial image-related factors influence the inflow of foreign direct investment to a particular country, especially a country with a unfavourable global image like Zimbabwe. The primary objective of this study was therefore to determine the perceived non-financial nation brand image factors considered to be influential for attracting specific foreign direct investment inflow opportunities in Zimbabwe. A comprehensive literature review resulted in the identification of nine independent variables (tourism, governance, people, culture and heritage, exports, investment and immigration, factor endowments, infrastructure, and legal and regulation frameworks), as well as four dependent variables (market-, resource-, efficiency- and strategic asset-seeking foreign direct investment inflow opportunities in Zimbabwe). A hypothesised model was developed in order to examine whether the independent variables have an influence on the dependent variables, and as a result nine hypotheses were formulated to test the relationships between the nine independent variables and each of the four dependent variables. A cross-sectional, quantitative deductive approach to research was employed in order to generate the data required for hypothesis testing. Purposive sampling techniques were employed to draw the sample frame for the study. A self-administered online survey was conducted, and generated empirical data from a final sample comprised of 305 investors who had applied to invest in Zimbabwe through the Zimbabwe Investment Authority between January 2009 and April 2015. Data was analysed using STATISTICA 12 software. Exploratory factor analysis was utilised to extract the constructs and validate the measuring instrument. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were calculated in order to test the reliability and internal consistency of the measuring instrument. As a result, a total of six valid and reliable independent variables, and four dependent variables were retained for further analysis. The results of the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients revealed mostly moderate correlations. The Multi-Collinearity diagnostics test confirmed the absence of collinearity between the independent variables and dependent variables respectively. Subsequently, the results of the four sets of multiple regression analyses, disclosed thirteen statistically significant relationships between the six independent variables and the four categorical dependent variables. Tourism had significant relationships with market-, efficiency- and strategic asset-seeking FDI inflow opportunities. Government actions had significant relationships with resource- and strategic asset-seeking FDI inflow opportunities. People had significant relationships with resource- and efficiency- seeking FDI inflow opportunities. Export had significant relationships with market-, resource-, efficiency- and strategic asset-seeking FDI inflow opportunities. Regulatory framework had significant relationships with market- and resource-seeking FDI inflow opportunities. The results of the Analysis of Variance revealed that investor status can be used to predict which non-financial nation brand image determinants played a role in the ultimate decision for taking up foreign direct investment opportunities in Zimbabwe. Further analysis of the role that the demographic profiles of the investors played in predicting which non-financial nation brand image determinants are considered influential in taking up foreign direct investment opportunities in Zimbabwe was confirmed in the Multivariate Analysis of Variance with thirty-four statically significant relationships identified. Further analysis by means of post-hoc Scheffé testing and Cohen’s d-values calculations confirm that thirty-nine practically significant mean differences were evident. This study makes a novel contribution to the empirical body of nation branding, foreign direct investment and investment promotion research by developing and testing a hypothetical model that synthesises facets of the three fields of study. This study represents a new discourse in the identification of the determinants of FDI (that being non-financial determinants) and provides an explanatory framework for the non-financial nation brand image determinants influencing each type of FDI inflow opportunity sought in Zimbabwe. It is within this framework that recommendations, based on empirical evidence, are made for the Government of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe Investment Authority. Some of these recommendations could be implemented within the short-term, while others may be more strategic in the long term. Recommendations made include that the Government of Zimbabwe undertakes significant policy reviews, continues its engagement with key external stakeholders such as other governments, supra-national financial institutions, and foreign investors, as well as adhering to existing favourable FDI policies. It is also recommended that the Zimbabwe Investment Authority adopt an intermediary role, by linking the Government of Zimbabwe with potential foreign investors through investor targeting, as well as promoting Zimbabwe as an investment destination by engaging in image-building activities such as public diplomacy, investor relations, specialised advertising and hosting investor forums with multiple, distinct investor segments. These image-building activities should be centered on the non-financial nation brand image determinants that foreign investors consider to be influential to foreign direct investment in Zimbabwe, and should be geared towards improving and managing the perceived image of Zimbabwe as an investment destination.

This dissertation explores household risk and savings behavior in Zimbabwe, and agricultural technology adoption, and the impact of public investments on the economy and community health in Ethiopia. The first paper analyzes changes in per capita consumption and savings behavior in Zimbabwe before and after a range of financial and weather-related shocks using comparable national income, consumption and expenditure surveys of 1990/91 and 1995/96. The empirical results show that before droughts and macroeconomic adjustments Zimbabweans used savings to smooth consumption. In contrast, risk management strategies were severely limited after the shocks; consumption tracked income more closely in the latter period. The inability to effectively address the risks arising from droughts and economy-wide structural changes implies that any subsequent economic and social uncertainty will have serious welfare consequences. The second paper examines the interaction between public investments, community health, and productivity- and land-enhancing technology adoption decisions by farm households in Northern Ethiopia. It models technology adoption as a sequential process where the timing of choices can matter. The econometric test results indicate that the decision and intensity of technology adoption are highly correlated with the sequential nature of adoption. The most striking results concern the importance of disease - the amount of time spent sick and time spent caring for sick family members are inversely associated with both the decision and intensity of technology adoption. Finally the third paper looks at the welfare impacts of a public water resource development project with health side effects in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia. It uses a model of a social planner to characterize the optimal implementation of such projects over time, showing how health and production are important considerations in this decision. The empirical analysis shows that the marginal net benefits of Tigray's current microdam investments are positive. The lost income households suffer from increased time away from productive activities (due to sickness) is compensated for by increased yields and market opportunities brought about through irrigated agriculture. However, it should be noted that this conclusion is based on efficiency and not equity.
Ph. D.

The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply (ESI) reforms of 2002 were primarily meant to improve the quantity and quality of electricity supply through encouraging private participation, especially in generation, introducing regulation and competition and restructuring the utility. The reforms have not yielded the expected results, two decades on. This research explores the reform process and the extent to which it is structured to encourage private investments. The research approach used was primarily qualitative, based on survey research and expert interviews as well as longitudinal power sector performance data. The research found that a transitional ESI structure was adopted to deal with legacy debt issues, as well as to allow the different companies time to develop to a level where they can commercially trade. The regulator was found to be fairly independent, with a good licensing framework and tariff methodology. However, the off-taker's tariff is below cost, though IPPs have been awarded cost reflective tariff and largely view the tariff methodology as acceptable. Only small IPPs have been able to commission their projects, with the larger ones failing to reach financial closure. This has not helped some of the objectives of the reform, as the installed capacity in the country remains below demand. The reforms proposed in the Electricity Act of 2013, meant to further restructure the utility, have not been implemented as the government felt that the conditions in the country were not yet conducive for the generation, transmission and distribution companies to be spun out of ZESA Holdings. The research concluded that the reforms managed to improve the attractiveness of the industry to investment, though only small IPPs managed to commission their projects, leaving a large demand-supply gap. It is recommended that further study be done to establish conditions necessary for further restructuring of the sector as this may be the panacea for unlocking bigger projects which will have an impact on improving the quantity and quality of power supply.

The outset of this study is to contribute to the literature concerning China’s increasing economic interest to engage in the African context, its economies and resource abundandce. The overarching research problem is that the approaches held by the respective African state entities may facilitate increasing development gains for the recipient state of this economic interest in principle. To adress this research problem the study is undertaken by conducting a comparative case study where three cases/states, with presumably diverging economic and political status, are likely to effect their overall state approaches differently. Research questions, which are addressed by the creation of an idealtype analytic matrix, concern whether the states of South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe take on a more ‘permissive’ or ‘restrictive’ approach towards China’s economic interst and whether the approaches can be looked upon on both aggratege and case/area-specific levels. The main findings are that a clear tendency of the ‘permissive approach’ may be noted on a aggregate level for all cases. Further, the cases’ economic and poltical status does not necessarily effect this aggregate tendency but but rather the dynamics in case-specific areas deemed relevant in this analysis. The desire to grasp the interest seems greater than internal dynamics.

Today Zimbabwe finds itself on the cusp of a new era, an inflection point which should set the country on a path towards recovery and sustainable economic growth, after years of being in a socio-economic quagmire yet extravagantly endowed with natural resources and extraordinary human capital. This study seeks to examine how best to unlock this untapped and embedded value for the emancipation of Zimbabwe’s people by looking at how other countries have extricated themselves from similar situations by the use of foreign direct investment. Pursuant to this cause, the author identified India as a case study from which Zimbabwe can learn and thus seeks to identify and measure the determinants of foreign direct investment and understand the policy framework underlying these determinants. Gross domestic product, trade, the exchange rate, inflation, foreign reserves and the foreign direct investment restrictiveness index were employed as variables in the research using annual data over a 27 year period from 1990 to 2016. This period was deliberately chosen to capture the impact of the liberalisation and reform efforts which set India on a growth path and today is the biggest recipient of greenfield foreign direct investment. The autoregressive distributed lag cointegration framework was employed as an estimation technique to examine the long-run relationship between foreign direct investment and the chosen explanatory variables. The findings reveal that the exchange rate and the foreign direct investment restrictiveness index are the key determinants of FDI in India with a negative relationship, thus a stronger Indian rupee and better restrictiveness index rating lead to more foreign direct investment inflows. Based on the results, placed in the context of India’s foreign direct investment policy framework, the study makes bespoke and befitting recommendations to the Zimbabwean authorities on how to use the import and the tenets of the foreign direct investment restrictiveness index as a basis for devising far reaching reforms needed to attract foreign direct investment for the sustainable development of Zimbabwe.

Magister Legum - LLM (Mercantile and Labour Law)
Most developed countries that enjoy the lion's share of foreign investment do not have domestic legal frameworks on foreign direct investment. This is because investors are attracted by a holistic picture of these countries. Such countries have strong institutions of governance, enjoy political and economic stability, embrace democracy, have respect for rights, and have high levels of development - factors which attract investors. In terms of regulation, many of these countries are heavily reliant on bilateral investment treaties. However, this is not the case in developing countries such as Zimbabwe. The existence of an effective and efficient legal framework on the governance of foreign direct investment is an important consideration for investors. This emanates from the fact that developing countries often have weak legal systems, shaky economies and uncertain political environments.

The thesis investigates household economic and behavioural implications of public investments funded by communal based wildlife management programmes, such as Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) in Zimbabwe. The thesis focuses on household education and adaptive capacity production. It further investigates determinants of programme stated preferences and behaviour thereof in communal areas of Zimbabwe, using the case of Dande communal area in Mbire district. Since its inception in the late 1980s, there has been debate over the adequacy of the implementation of the CAMPFIRE programme in effecting economic and behavioural change in the respective communities. However, most of the assessments focused on household financial gains, poverty reduction and inequality. Results show that little financial gains accrue to the respective households, with poverty and inequality remaining high. This thesis argues that the main development trajectory in communities implementing communally based wildlife programmes such as CAMPFIRE is biased towards public capital investment; in the form of infrastructure development and respective support for the related services. By design therefore, the programme will have positive impact on access to publicly provided goods and services rather than private goods. By implication, the study further argues that the programme will therefore have varied implications on households' adaptive capacity components that are closely linked to the investment trajectory. Furthermore, there has been mixed feelings regarding the CAMPFIRE programme at the local level, varied to mixed decision outcomes regarding stated preferences on whether to continue the programme or not. The study attempts to decipher this by investigating whether feelings are driven by past wild animal encounters and whether the stated programme preferences are in turn driven by the reported feelings or perceptions of benefit (utility). The study uses posttest data collected through survey-method-choiceexperimental design complemented by qualitative data collection from wildlife producer communities and non-wildlife producing communities in Mbire rural district. I present the exploration on each of the issues in three papers included in the chapters herewith. The first paper investigates effects of the Communal Area Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE)'s public investment on education production. The objectives are to estimate the average treatment effect of the programme on children's participation in formal education and identify the socioeconomic inputs that influence education production. The study uses the post-test only control group design and Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATET) in estimating the impact of CAMPFIRE programme induced changes on participation in formal education of children of school going-age. I use propensity score estimation to correct for confounding factors, and to allow for comparison of units with similar background characteristics. Results show that education production improves by 12 per cent when children are under the CAMPFIRE programme than when they are not. However, results from education production function show that socio-economic inputs or characteristics are significant factors in explaining variation in education production in CAMPFIRE implementing areas than in nonprogramme implementing areas. This indicates that the programme design is does not remove education disparity between better and less resourced households. Therefore, while public investments for the programme improves education production it needs to be re-configured to address the skewedness. The second paper investigates the average treatment effects on the treated, ATET of community based wildlife management programme on resilience, specifically household adaptive capacity and its different components. The thesis investigates household economic and behavioural implications of public investments funded by communal based wildlife management programmes, such as Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) in Zimbabwe. The thesis focuses on household education and adaptive capacity production. It further investigates determinants of programme stated preferences and behaviour thereof in communal areas of Zimbabwe, using the case of Dande communal area in Mbire district. Since its inception in the late 1980s, there has been debate over the adequacy of the implementation of the CAMPFIRE programme in effecting economic and behavioural change in the respective communities. However, most of the assessments focused on household financial gains, poverty reduction and inequality. Results show that little financial gains accrue to the respective households, with poverty and inequality remaining high. This thesis argues that the main development trajectory in communities implementing communally based wildlife programmes such as CAMPFIRE is biased towards public capital investment; in the form of infrastructure development and respective support for the related services. By design therefore, the programme will have positive impact on access to publicly provided goods and services rather than private goods. By implication, the study further argues that the programme will therefore have varied implications on households' adaptive capacity components that are closely linked to the investment trajectory. Furthermore, there has been mixed feelings regarding the CAMPFIRE programme at the local level, varied to mixed decision outcomes regarding stated preferences on whether to continue the programme or not. The study attempts to decipher this by investigating whether feelings are driven by past wild animal encounters and whether the stated programme preferences are in turn driven by the reported feelings or perceptions of benefit (utility). The study uses posttest data collected through survey-method-choice experimental design complemented by qualitative data collection from wildlife producer communities and non-wildlife producing communities in Mbire rural district. I present the exploration on each of the issues in three papers included in the chapters herewith. The first paper investigates effects of the Communal Area Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE)'s public investment on education production. The objectives are to estimate the average treatment effect of the programme on children's participation in formal education and identify the socioeconomic inputs that influence education production. The study uses the post-test only control group design and Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATET) in estimating the impact of CAMPFIRE programme induced changes on participation in formal education of children of school going-age. I use propensity score estimation to correct for confounding factors, and to allow for comparison of units with similar background characteristics. Results show that education production improves by 12 per cent when children are under the CAMPFIRE programme than when they are not. However, results from education production function show that socio-economic inputs or characteristics are significant factors in explaining variation in education production in CAMPFIRE implementing areas than in nonprogramme implementing areas. This indicates that the programme design is does not remove education disparity between better and less resourced households. Therefore, while public investments for the programme improves education production it needs to be re-configured to address the skewedness. The second paper investigates the average treatment effects on the treated, ATET of community based wildlife management programme on resilience, specifically household adaptive capacity and its different components. Adaptive capacity denotes the ability of a system to adjust, modify or change its characteristics or actions to moderate potential damage, take advantage of opportunities or cope with the consequences of shocks or stresses. I use Regression Adjustment and Potential Outcome Means (POM) procedures to estimate ATET. Results show that the programme's effect is negative on social, economic and human capacities while positive for transformative or physical capacity. The programme however, has a positive effect on the overall adaptive capacity. The average social capital index for example is 0.011 or 1.1 per cent less when households implement CAMPFIRE programme than the average of 0.061 or 6.1 per cent that would have occurred or obtain if these households were not implementing the programme. The human capital capacity index for programme implementing households is 0.006, less than 0.076, if they were not implementing the programme. The economic capacity index is 0.008 less when treated than the average of 0.068 that would have occurred if the programme-implementing households were not under the programme. However, on physical capacity the potential outcome would be 0.038 higher than 0.183 if the programme-implementing households were not implementing. On the overall household adaptive capacity index, the potential outcome is 0.012 higher than 0.388 that would obtain if the programme-implementing households were not implementing the programme. The results reflect the investment trajectory in the area; a higher proportion of income from the conservation programme has been directed towards public goods provisioning, improving the physical capacity of the respective households. Lessons from the results are that impacts of investments are a result of the investment portfolio configuration. Results of the education production function confirm that the CAMPFIRE programme affects the individual components of adaptive capacity variably; negatively on household social, economic capacities, and positively on household physical capacity, with no significant effect on human capacity and overall household adaptive capacity. Implementing the programme significantly improves access to public service for the poor: with no significant change in economic and social statuses. Furthermore, the results also show that there are other covariates that have significant influence on household capacities, such as having a household member out of the country, or in an urban area, being a widow, belonging to some ethnic groups such as Karanga, and religious affiliation, for example traditional religion. Having a household member in the diaspora for example improves household economic and human capacity, while traditional religion tends to have negative effect on all household adaptive capacities. The key lesson is that the programme is flexible; policy makers can reconfigure it to address critical livelihoods and capacity components as needed. With the active participation of local communities, it can therefore be directed to invest in livelihoods components that are more preferable. In the third paper, I argue that heuristic theory can be used to explain some of the observed or stated human behaviour and stated preferences in communities implementing wildlife based programmes. Heuristics are feelings generated by encounters, painful or pleasurable, which triggers some behaviour traits in the future. The paper aims to determine whether subjects' past encounters with wild animals influence negative affect/feelings; and whether the negative affect leads subjects (1) to engage in self-reported behaviours such as poaching and killing of wild animals and (2) stated preferences towards community based wildlife programmes.

Transfer pricing refers is a practice that is mainly conducted by Multinational Enterprises to evade their tax obligations. This is done by the transfer of profits from a country where the payable tax is higher and declaring them in a country were the payable tax will be less. This practice affects the host state as the tax base of that state is reduced. In some countries, this practice has resulted in annual losses that amount to billions. Developed countries have successfully tackled the challenge of Transfer Pricing. The United States of America and the United Kingdom were the first countries to introduce transfer pricing legislation. Other developed countries followed the trend and now have comprehensive regimes that do not promote illicit financial flows. With these developments in the developed countries came the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development which assisted countries in further developing their governing laws. The main contribution that was introduced by the organisation were reports that interpreted complex terms and provided guidelines that can be used in the adoption of new laws. Africa has always lagged behind in the regulation of Transfer Pricing. Most States that have governing legislation adopted the laws in the last 10 years and some countries are still in the process of adopting new regulating laws. The OECD guidelines have been instrumental in the developments taken by the African countries. Zimbabwe recently amended its Income Tax Act to provide for the regulation of illicit financial flows. However, as with most African countries, the laws are not comprehensive enough to ensure that Multinational Enterprises desist from evading their tax obligations. Therefore, there is need for further development of the governing laws. The Arm’s length principle has become the accepted standard to be used in the assessment of Transfer Pricing issues. The principle entails that related companies should transact as if they are not related. This mainly deals with the manner in which they charge each other for services rendered or for the sale of goods. Price fixation is a practice that is common with such companies which is targeted at manipulation of profits in a targeted country. Therefore, with the introduction of the arm’s length principle, such practices are effectively addressed. In this study, the issues surrounding illicit financial flows and the legislation governing Transfer Pricing in Zimbabwe will be discussed. A comparative study with the United Kingdom will also be undertaken to assess how the existing laws can be improved to become more comprehensive.
Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2017.
Centre for Human Rights
LLM
Unrestricted

The study examines and analyses the Government of Zimbabwe's investment policy in water and irrigation agriculture between 1980 and 1985 from an economic and policy approach. The approach emphasises both the economic and policy implications that result from such public investment. The major objective of the study is to assess whether or not public investment in water and irrigation has satisfied Government economic and policy objectives of 'growth and equity'. The cost-benefit framework has been adopted in the assessment of the performance of the commercial irrigation sector. Using this framework, the study seeks to show whether chosen policies have optimized such economic benefits as economic growth, profitability, foreign exchange earnings, and employment creation, for the costs incurred. Small-scale peasant schemes are assessed using cost-effective analysis framework. On the basis of this method, the study examines the extent to which chosen policy strategies and projects have maximized equity objectives such as the increase in food production, improvement in standard of living, and increase in income earnings etc, at least cost of production. Throughout the analysis of the two sectors, the role played by public subsidies in all the cost structures is examined. In the case of peasant schemes the costs are compared with those of the rain-fed peasant agriculture in order to assess the incremental equity, or lack of it, due to irrigation. Social and environmental effects of these policies and their impact on costs and benefits are also discussed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The whole analysis takes place against the background of national economic decline, rising investment costs and rising public debt. The question of the economy's ability to support a subsidy-based investment policy is central in the whole study as this raises serious implications for future investment. Alternative investment strategies and future research areas are suggested.

Doctor Legum - LLD
This thesis examines the legal framework of Zimbabwe to determine if the laws and policies which are in place create opportunities for, or barriers to, economic development. Specifically, it examines the legal framework governing trade, investment and financial services. The thesis focuses on Zimbabwe as a case study and draws lessons from South Africa. It proceeds from the premise that despite the numerous attempts made at international, regional and domestic levels to increase economic development (such as through liberalisation of markets and access to international development finance), Zimbabwe has failed to attain 'developed country' status. The purpose of the thesis is to examine the causes of poor economic performance in Zimbabwe postindependence (post-1980).

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MANAGEMENT IN FINANCE AND INVESTMENTS Of WITS BUSINESS SCHOOL March 2015
The paper investigates the presence of two calendar anomalies; the day of the week or Mon-day effect and the Month of the year or January effect by modelling volatility of the industrial index returns on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) pre and post the multi-currency sys-tem. The procedure is carried out by employing non-parametric models from the Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (GARCH) family; GARCH, Exponential GARCH (EGARCH) and Threshold GARCH (TGARCH). The models are better suited in modelling daily and monthly seasonality as they can capture the time-varying volatility of the stock return data. The period of analysis is from the January 2004 to April 2008 (pre-dollarization period) and the second period of analysis is from the post-currency reform which runs from February 2009 to December 2013. The results obtained from the study are mixed. The day of the week test finds significantly negative returns on Monday, Wednesday and Friday pre the currency reform whilst a nega-tive Wednesday effect is found post the currency reform period. The TGARCH model is the only one that captures a negative monthly effects on all the months of the year with the ex-ception of January pre the currency reform period. No monthly effects are found on the ZSE post the currency reform period by all models employed. The absence of monthly seasonality effects and the reduced number of days of day of the week effects from all the GARCH mod-els employed can infer that the currency reform had a positive impact which translated to market efficiency.

This study sought to investigate the effectiveness of initial public offerings (IPOs) on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), as an investment option in comparison to their seasoned matching firms and to establish why an investor would prefer buying into an IPO and not into already trading matching firms. The study also sought to determine the extent of IPO underpricing and to establish if there is a relationship between underpricing and the long-run performance of IPOs. This study further sought to establish the reasons behind the investors' over-optimism in IPOs despite their uncertainty as well as to establish the factors governing the success or failure of IPOs. A matching firm was judgementally selected for each of the IPOs listed on the ZSE during the period 1997 to 2002, for the purposes of comparing the short and long-run buy and hold returns. Returns for the 15 qualifying IPOs and 15 seasoned matching firms were analysed and the share price performance compared in event windows of 30 days, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years and 5 years from the respective IPO dates. Questionnaires were also administered on a sample of 50 major stock market investors comprising stockbrokers, mutual funds, insurance companies, pension funds and merchant banks to test various theoretical propositions on these IPOs. Consistent with Majaya (2002) and Mutsigwa (2004), this study finds that there is substantial underpricing of IPOs in Zimbabwe with an average of 28% underpricing. This paper also finds that IPOs in Zimbabwe leave money on the table as a result of underpricing. The study finds that IPOs offer higher short-run returns than their seasoned matching firms and consistent with Brav and Gompers (1997), that there is no difference between the long-run performance of IPOs and that of their seasoned matching firms. This study finds no evidence of a relationship between underpricing and long-run IPO performance. The study also finds that the market condition, the timing of placement of an IPO and the firm size and age are some of the key factors determining the success or failure of an IPO and that oversubscription of IPOs on the ZSE is attributed to the size of the bourse which is too small, to cope with the demand for IPO shares. This study concludes that IPOs are risky investment and recommends that investors should carry out detailed analysis on the future prospects of an IPO before buying shares. Ascertaining the true value of a share may help the investor decide whether or not to invest in an IPO. The study recommends that the ZSE management should explore the possibility of setting up an exchange for small capitalisation stocks and that they should remove some of the restrictive listing requirements to enable more companies to list and access capital for expansion and other projects in a country already starved of foreign direct investment due to economic sanctions.
Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2006.

The study has empirically examined the relative impact of public and private investment on economic growth and has also tested the crowding in or crowding out effect of public investment on private investment in four Southern African economies – Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The analysis used annual time-series data covering the period from 1970 to 2014. The study provides new evidence to contribute firstly to the current debate regarding the relative importance of public and private investment in economic growth processes and secondly, on whether public investment crowds in or crowds out private investment in the selected countries. For this purpose, the study employed two empirical models using the recently developed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL)-bounds testing approach to cointegration. Model 1 examines the relative impact of public and private investment on economic growth while Model 2 investigates the crowding in or crowding out effect of gross public investment and its subcomponents (infrastructural and non-infrastructural) on private investment. The results of Model 1 largely supported the private investment-led economic growth strategy. In all the study countries, private investment had a positive impact on economic growth. Also, public investment positively contributed to economic growth in Zimbabwe, but in the remaining study countries, public investment had a negative relationship with economic growth. Results from Model 2 reveal that: (i) the crowding out effect of gross public investment on private investment predominates in the study countries; (ii) infrastructural public investment crowds in private investment in South Africa and Zimbabwe in the long run while it crowds out private investment in Malawi and Zambia in the short run; and (iii) non-infrastructural public investment crowds out private investment in South Africa and Zambia. On balance, the results from Model 2 show that public investment tends to crowd out private investment in the selected countries and this further underscore the importance of the private sector-led economic growth processes in the study countries.
Economics
D. Phil. (Economics)

The main ambit of this research is to seek to find a link between bilateral investment treaties and foreign direct investment. This offers a contribution on the ongoing debate on the effect of bilateral investment treaties on foreign direct investment. In order to analyze this debatable role of bilateral investment treaties on foreign direct investment a case study of the recently signed Bilateral Investment and Promotion and Protection Act between Zimbabwe and South Africa (BIPPA) is carried out with a special focus on Zimbabwe. The argument is BIPPA contains many rights which investors can use against the host. These clear outlined rules increase investor confident which will result in flows of investments to the host nation. The rules have a disciplinary effect upon the host. This is further qualified by the notion that BIPPA will have more effect on the Zimbabwean side were the government have to convince investors that their property will be protected. Domestic policies will be highlighted as being in conflict with investors rights. BIPPA can thus be used as shield to these domestic policies thereby encouraging foreign direct investment. These treaties however have their own cost effects which will be categorized as reputational, sovereignty and arbitration. Other issues such as the effect of bilateral investment treaties on development will also be deliberated on.
Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2010.
Centre for Human Rights
unrestricted