Electronic Theses and Dissertations (PhDs)

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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (PhDs) by Author "Mahonye, Nyasha"

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    Bank regulation, cross-border banking and interest rate pass- through in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03) Gondwe, Sopani; Mahonye, Nyasha
    The thesis comprises five interrelated chapters that seek to advance empirical literature on banking and financial sector stability (risk) by focusing on some salient regulatory and monetary issues of policy relevance and interest to developing countries of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The market structure and regulatory environment in which banks operate in SSA have significantly changed over the last two decades, and the banking systems of a number of countries have also markedly grown during this period. For instance, and especially after the global financial crisis (GFC), supervisory authorities in most countries introduced new regulations, and/or in some cases, enhanced their existing bank regulatory frameworks to conform with international best practice and standards. However, questions have been raised as to whether developing countries like those in SSA need to adopt international regulatory standards indiscriminately – and whether the benefits arising from the adoption of such policies or standards outweigh the costs. At the same time, the SSA region has witnessed significant penetration of foreign banks – a development that has heightened the risk of financial contagion and cross-border spill over effects. In most countries, there have also been considerable changes in the design and implementation of monetary policy over the past two decades. These changes have triggered a considerable debate on whether and how regulatory and structural factors in the financial system impede or facilitate monetary policy transmission – a debate that, as yet, is not fully settled. This study interrogates the above issues by focussing on three related questions. First, how do regulations – that are based on international best practice and standards, impact or shape risk- taking behaviour (i.e. stability) of banks in SSA? Second, what are the banking sector stability implications of increased foreign bank penetration in the host countries? Finally, how does competition and capital regulation affect the transmission of monetary policy to commercial banks’ lending and deposit rates i.e. the interest rate pass-through (IRPT) in SSA? In addressing each question, the study applied panel econometric analyses using bank and country-level data. The data was obtained from various sources, namely; Bankfocus database, the World Bank Regulatory and Supervision Surveys (BRSSs), IMF International Financial Statistics (IFS), IMF Financial Soundness Indicators (FSIs), World Bank Governance Indicators (WBGIs), Global Financial Development Database (GFDD, 2019), and The Heritage Foundation.
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    Rail infrastructure developments and their productivity impact with special reference to institutions in five Southern African development community countries
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Dzawanda, Bernard; Ferddeke, Johanes W.; Mahonye, Nyasha
    This thesis investigates the determinants of rail infrastructure investment and its impact on productivity growth in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe for the period 1960 to 2018. The descriptive analysis of rail infrastructure data covers the period from 1939 to 2018. With the exception of South Africa, data availability limited the study analytics to start from 1960. The five Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries share a common history in terms of development, and their rail networks are interconnected. The focus of the study is on the quantity of rail infrastructure. Based on the augmented Bond, Mairesse, and Mulkay (1997) investment model, we apply the Pooled Mean Group estimator of Pesaran, Shin and Smith (1999) on novel datasets of rail infrastructure measures to estimate the drivers of rail infrastructure investment and efficiency in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Estimation results suggest that economic, geostrategic and institutional factors drive rail infrastructure investment, efficiency and productivity growth in the four countries. GDP is found to have an insignificant impact on rail infrastructure investment. South Africa being distinctly different from the other four countries provides a different contextual setting to investigate the determinants of rail infrastructure investment and efficiency, and its impact on productivity growth. We separately apply time series analysis in the case of South Africa using the Bounds Test technique of Pesaran, Shin and Smith (2001). Estimation results suggest that GDP has a significant negative impact on rail infrastructure investment in South Africa. Government investment has a significant negative impact on rail infrastructure investment. Research results suggest that geostrategic factors have a significant positive impact on rail infrastructure investment in the four countries, and insignificant on rail infrastructure efficiency except in the case of passenger rail infrastructure investment where the impact is negative. In contrast, geostrategic factors have an insignificant impact on rail infrastructure investment in South Africa except for mixed rail infrastructure investment where the impact is negative. The impact of geostrategic factors on rail infrastructure efficiency in South Africa is found to be positive.