BRICS voting behaviour in the United Nations security council in 2011: cohesion or divergence?
- Authors: Barnard, Sharlene
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: BRIC countries , United Nations. Security Council - Voting , Security, International - Africa - International cooperation
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/296193 , uj:32267
- Description: Abstract: The study places on record BRICS’ voting data from 2011 on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) related to issues of peace and security. It investigates the cohesion in terms of BRICS’ voting behaviour on the UNSC during 2011, when all BRICS member states held a seat on the Council concurrently either by virtue of a permanent member seat (China and Russia) or a non-permanent member seat (Brazil, India and South Africa). The study additionally investigates the cohesion in terms of individual BRICS member states’ declared foreign policy and that of the objective of the BRICS grouping affirmed under the grouping’s ‘annual summit declarations’. The voting data and related explanations are drawn from the United Nations Bibliographical Information System (UNBISnet) and the United Nations Media Coverage and Press Releases portal – two main databases concerning voting records in the UN and found in the Dag Hammarskjold online library. Using Graham’s three-step model of voting behaviour (discussed in Chapter Two), the study traces each BRICS member state’s declared foreign policy in 2011 in the first step, along with the objectives of the BRICS grouping (Chapter Three); the voting actions of BRICS member states on 58 UNSC resolutions related to peace and security during 2011 in the second step (Chapter Three); and the explanations and interpretations of the voting actions in the final step (Chapter Four). By organising the data in the above manner, the study intends to examine the voting behaviour of BRICS member states during 2011 on the UNSC more manageably. The model is applied to resolutions relating to international peace and security tabled at the UNSC during 2011. A table is also used to assess whether the voting actions of individual BRICS member states portray cohesion or divergence within BRICS. In summary, therefore, the grouping’s voting behaviour is analysed concerning issues of peace and security resolutions tabled at the UNSC during 2011. The study concludes that in 2011 there was cohesion between the individual declared foreign policies of BRICS member states, between the declared foreign policies of BRICS member states and the objectives of the BRICS grouping; and more significantly cohesion in the voting actions of BRICS member states on the UNSC. The grouping portrayed cohesion on over 96 per cent of the votes on peace and security. It is evident that the BRICS grouping portrayed divergence on two of the 58 resolutions under question, specifically on the situation in Libya and ‘Peace and Security in Africa’, concerning the situation in Eritrea. This could be attributed to the fact that 2011 was the first time that the BRICS grouping all held a concurrent seat on the UNSC, and the first time that the grouping was presented with the opportunity to cooperate on issues of peace and security, on a multilateral platform, such as the UNSC. Overall BRICS demonstrated a commitment to international peace and security and multilateralism, in its voting behaviour at the UNSC in 2011. , M.A. (Politics)
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The impact of exchange rate volatility on capital flows in BRICS economies
- Authors: Gnagne, Pascal Xavier
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Foreign exchange rates , Capital movements , BRIC countries
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/272301 , uj:28979
- Description: M.Com. (Financial Economics) , Abstract: This study intends to analyse the impact of exchange rate risk on equity returns and bond yields as well as the volatility spillover between the foreign exchange, equity and bond markets in the BRICS economies. To reach this objective, a multivariate GARCH-M with BEKK specifications is applied on weekly data obtained from Thomson Reuters DataStream. The dataset consists of each BRICS country’s exchange rate, namely the Brazilian real, Russian ruble, Indian rupee, Chinese yuan and South African rand, against the US dollar. In addition, the study makes use of stock market equity indices of each BRICS country, namely the Brazilian Bovespa Index; Russian Trading System Index (RTSI), National Stock Exchange (NSE) NIFTY 50 Index for India; Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index for China and FTSE/JSE All Share Index for South Africa. The other databases used are the ten-year government bond yields for each BRICS country, with sample data depending on availability, thus varying for each country: data for India and South Africa span from November 1996 to November 2016, Brazil’s data are from January 2006 to November 2016; Russia’s data span from April 2003 to November 2016 and the period of China’s data are from June 2002 to November 2016. The results of estimation show that exchange rate volatility has a positive impact on ten-year bond yields in all BRICS countries except in South Africa, where the volatility of exchange rate has a negative impact. In addition, volatility to exchange rate positively influences equity returns in Brazil, India and South Africa, while the influence on Chinese and Russian equity returns is negative. These findings show that equity returns increase with the increase in exchange rate volatility in Brazil, India and South Africa, and decrease in China and Russia. Furthermore, the results on volatility spillovers between the equity returns, bond yields and foreign exchange markets show that the transmissions are from capital markets to foreign exchange market in South Africa, while the volatility to currency markets influence capital markets in Russia. The results of the study give evidence of bidirectional volatility transmissions in Brazil and China. Surprisingly, in India, volatility is transmitted from foreign exchange markets to bond markets, while changes to equity influence the foreign exchange markets. S&P 500 returns positively affect equity returns in all five emerging nations, indicating that a one percent increase in S&P 500 returns yields to a rise in equity returns in...
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A test of contagion among BRICS economies
- Authors: Konan, Yao Lionel
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: BRIC countries , Quantile regression , Contagion (Social psychology) - Economic aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/451420 , uj:39775
- Description: Abstract: This research applies an ordinary GARCH (1, 1) model, as well as a quantile regression technique to analyse the effects of contagion among BRICS economies. To this end, data on Brazilian, Russian, Indian, Chinese, and South African deposit and lending rates are estimated to test if contagion exists between these economies. Monthly periods are used for the estimations, ranging from April 1999 to June 2018. The study focuses on a dependence structure among the variables by investigating seven quantiles to detect possible contagion effects. The results indicate that China induces asymmetric dependence towards its BRICS counterparts, namely Brazil, Russia and India, but does not affect South Africa’s interest rates. However, the latter are asymmetrically dependent on the Russia and Brazil interest rates. This study is therefore not entirely supportive of BRICS interest rates contagion. The study findings should be of importance to international investors exploring portfolio diversification, and to the policymakers of the BRICS countries who may be seeking monetary policy implementation and capital market liberalization. , M.Com. (Financial Economics)
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The effects of oil price shocks on equity market returns in the BRICS grouping : a quantile on quantile approach
- Authors: Mabanga, Chris
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Petroleum products - Prices , BRIC countries , Stocks - Prices - BRIC countries
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/451514 , uj:39789
- Description: Abstract: This study assesses the effects of the magnitude of oil price shocks i.e. large negative, positive and moderate oil price shocks on equity market returns in BRICS countries during different market circumstances by making use of quantile-on-quantile regression. The current study differs from studies that employ quantile-on-quantile in assessing the relationship between oil price shocks and equity returns in different aspects. Firstly, the study intends to assess how this relationship differs per countries given their factor endowment (i.e. whether they export or import oil) within the BRICS grouping. Secondly, we also differ from Sim Zhou (2015) and Tchatoka et al. (2018) because we introduce the supply shocks by following the same structure as Kilian and Park (2009) but changing the Cholesky decomposition by ordering real oil price first, assuming the contemporaneous response of global production to oil price. The results of the empirical analysis show that distinction should be made between the demand-driven and supply-driven oil price shocks and that the outcome of this relationship depends on whether a country is a net importer or exporter of crude oil. For most of the net oil-importing countries, the low oil price demand shocks, which translate to lower oil prices, further stimulate equity markets when they are at peak. And for oil-producing countries in general, high demand oil price shocks provide an incentive for the expansion of equity markets during bad market conditions. , M.Com. (Financial Economics)
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The relevance of human capital in attracting FDI : evidence from BRICS Countries
- Authors: Ndlovu, Bheki Musa
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Human capital , BRIC countries , Investments, Foreign
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/124249 , uj:20893
- Description: Abstract: This study investigates the relevance of human capital proxied by the gross secondary school enrolment in attracting FDI into BRICS countries, which include: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa for the period 1980-2013. After controlling for heterogeneity, endogeneity, and spatial effects, aggregate results from different panel techniques indicate that human capital is a significant and relevant factor in attracting FDI into BRICS countries. However, gross public expenditure on education and health care are found to be negatively related to FDI. This implies that wholesale public expenditure is undesirable, but rather a more prudent targeted sectorial public expenditure can produce the desired outcomes. The spatial effects analysis indicates that there is cross sectional dependency amongst BRICS countries. Consistently, country level results indicate that human capital is significant in attracting FDI in almost all the BRICS countries. Furthermore, all the models are checked for robustness by using different diagnostic tests in order to ascertain that the results are accurate and reliable. The results are consistent with prevailing economic theory except for the outcomes of public expenditure on education and health care. Thus, the study concludes that human capital has a positive effect on FDI in BRICS countries and that policy makers are justified in seeking synergies between educational and FDI policies in order to propel future economic growth rates. , M.Com. (Economics)
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Estimation of value-at-risk in BRICS economies : use of multivariate GARCH models
- Authors: Nleya, Lebogang
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Risk - Econometric models , GARCH model , Stock exchanges , BRIC countries
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/75087 , uj:18630
- Description: Abstract: A substantial amount of studies have estimated market risk by employing multivariate GARCH models but none of these studies according to be best of our knowledge has applied this technique on BRICS data . The aim of this paper is to compare the performance of three multivariate risk models (DCC-GARCH, ADCC-GARCH and CCC-GARCH) in estimating portfolio Value-at-Risk (VaR). Unlike the previous literature, we employ in our study the BRICS data and different weights to assess how changes in these weights affect the performance of the different multivariate risk models. The equity market indexes from the five countries that the paper employs are; the Brazilian Ibovespa Brasil Sao Paulo Stock Exchange Index (IBOV), Russian MICEX index, Indian S&P BSE SENSEX Index (SENSEX), Chinese Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index (SHCOMP) and the South African Johannesburg All Share Index (ALSI). In addition the Brazilian real/USD (brl/usd), Russian ruble/usd, Indian rupee/USD (inr/usd), renminbi/USD (cyn/usd) and the rand/USD (zar/usd) exchange rates are also employed in the study. The Average Deviations, Quadratic Probability Function Score and the Root Mean Square Error are used to backtest the performance of the models at 90%. The results indicate that multivariate GARCH models of dynamic correlation, in particular the DCC and ADCC-GARCH perform better than the CCC. In addition, giving more weight to currencies and less to equities proves to be the best way of minimizing risk in BRICS when holding a portfolio made of foreign exchanges and equities. , M.Com.
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Volatility spillover of selected international commodity prices on the financial markets of the BRICS countries
- Authors: Ramohloa, Rethabile
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Prices - BRIC countries , Stock exchanges - BRIC countries , BRIC countries , Derivative securities - BRIC countries
- Language: English
- Type: Masters (Thesis)
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/292357 , uj:31770
- Description: M.Com. (Financial Management) , Abstract: This study aims to investigate if oil and natural gas price volatility can be used to explain movements in the BRICS financial markets. The study examined the impact of oil and gas prices on equity and foreign exchange markets for Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa over the period from January 2011 to October 2016. Several tests were conducted and the results indicated the presence of cointegration which means that there are long run relationships among the variables. This led to the VECM being selected as the appropriate model. Granger causality, impulse response and variance decomposition analyses were also conducted. Through all these analyses, natural gas prices were found to have an insignificant impact on BRICS equity markets and exchange rates. While the gas price impact was insignificant, oil prices were found to Granger cause Russia, China and South Africa’s equity markets as well as the exchange rates in Russia, India and China ceteris paribus. BRICS equity markets responded positively to oil shocks but a negative response was observed with exchange rates. The variance decomposition analysis revealed gas prices contribution to BRICS exchange rates and equity markets is negligible. Furthermore, the impact of oil shocks was relatively large for Brazil’s equity market. The study concludes that natural gas price changes cannot be used to explain the volatility in BRICS financial markets while oil price volatility has a spill over effect on BRICS countries with most of the volatility affecting Brazil’s equity market.
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South Africa's economic integration with BRIC countries
- Authors: Çakir, Mustafa
- Date: 2013-12-09
- Subjects: International economic integration , International cooperation , BRIC countries , Africa, Southern - Economic integration
- Type: Thesis
- Identifier: uj:7820 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/8714
- Description: D.Phil. (Economics) , This thesis presents a discussion of the economic integration between South Africa and the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so called BRICs. The thesis analyses four channels of interdependence: trade, investment, business cycle and the increasing importance of shocks originating from China. It makes significant and original contributions to the empirical literature by employing several econometric techniques. In the first two cases, a global vector autoregressive (global VAR) model is used to analyse the trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) linkages between South Africa and the BRIC countries over the period 1995-2009. The results show trade linkages between these economies whose magnitude differs between countries. Shocks from each BRIC country are shown to have considerable impact on South African real imports and output. However, there is no evidence of FDI linkages between these economies. This shows that the notable performance of the BRIC economies are not transmitted to the South African economy by FDI flows, but rather through the exchange rates for some countries and trade for the others. In the third application, the nature of co-movement between South Africa and the BRIC countries is examined by applying the dynamic factor model to a set of 307 macroeconomic series over the 1995-2009 period. Particularly, the extent of co-movement between the cyclical component of real output across South Africa and the BRICs is assessed. The results show significant degree of co-movement between South Africa and the BRICs over the business cycle and the long-run, although the magnitude of the co-movement differs with each country. In terms of the lead and lag relationships across South Africa and the BRIC countries, the study ends that only India leads South Africa over the cyclical period. The findings suggest that the first two factors are BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) factorswhile the third factor can be considered a United States factor. The last application investigates, using a factor model estimated with quarterly data from 1995 to 2009, how China’s shocks are transmitted to BRIS (Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa). The results show that China’s supply shocks are more important than its demand shocks. Supply shocks produce positive and significant output responses in all BRIS countries. However, their extent is significant only for short horizon in India. Positive demand shocks from China have positive and significant extent on Brazil’s and South Africa’s output only. The intensity of economic relationship and channels of transmission of shocks are different between China and BRIS. The results based on the variance share of the common component suggest that South Africa and Russia are linked intensively to China, while Brazil and India have only moderate linkages with China. International trade is an important channel for the transmission of shocks across China and BRIS countries indicating that supply and demand shocks in China do not have similar extent on the BRIS countries and therefore they require different policy responses.
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