Inom finansiell ekonomi finns en seglivad teori om att utdelningsändringar innehåller information om framtida ekonomiska resultat. Aktiemarknaden reagerar i enlighet med teorin på så vis att aktiekursen stiger när utdelningen höjs, och tvärtom, vilket har dokumenterats i ett flertal studier. Bakom aktiemarknadens reaktion på den ändrade utdelningen borde det finnas ett positivt samband mellan utdelningsändringar och framtida ekonomiska resultat. Problemet är att förekomsten av ett sådant samband är högst tveksam; tidigare empiriska studier har trots flerfaldiga försök inte funnit övertygande argument för förekomsten av ett samband mellan utdelningsändringar och framtida ekonomiska resultat. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om det finns ett positiv samband mellan utdelningsändringar och framtida resultat och lönsamhet. Det empiriska underlaget är företag på Nasdaq Stockholm under perioden 1999–2018. Sambandet eftersöks med hjälp av en regressionsmodell i vilken vi kontrollerar för det icke-linjära beteendeet hos resultat och lönsamhet. Vi finner ett par statistiskt signifikanta resultat som påvisar samband mellan sänkta utdelningar och framtida resultat och lönsamhet; dessa är dock så pass små att de saknar ekonomisk relevans. Vårt resultat är således i linje med tidigare empiriska studier och stödjer därmed inte teori om utdelningssignalering. / Within the area of corporate finance, there exists a persistent theory that revolves around the idea that changes in terms of corporate dividend may yield information regarding future financial results. The stock market is known to fluctuate in accordance with this theory by ways of indicating increased share prices in close correspondence to increased dividend, and vice versa, which has also been documented in several previous studies. This relation between the stock market’s reaction to the change in dividend should by all accounts point to a positive correlation between dividend changes and future financial results. Yet, this relation has to this point been proved to be highly doubtful. Previous empirical studies have not been able to find any convincing arguments that such a relationship exists. The purpose of this essay is to investigate if there in fact exists a relationship between dividend changes and future earnings and profitability. The empirical data for this study consists of the companies listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm during the period of 1999 to 2018. This proposed relationship has been investigated by the use of a regression model, in which we have examined the known non-linear behaviour of earnings and profitability. By this method we have found a few results of statistical significance that do seem to indicate a relation, between lowered dividend and future financial outcomes. However, while still statistically significant, these results are not economically significant. Our results are therefore considered to be in line with previous research and does not offer any further support for the proposed theory of the dividend signaling hypothesis.

This Master’s Thesis deals with the analysis of current situation in company AŽD, s.r.o. and of its financial planning model. On the basis of findings, the work includes the proposal of improvement this model.

The thesis assesses the financial and economic situation of the company Balky, s. r.o. based on selected methods of financial analysis. For financial analysis, business data is used from the period 2007 - 2009. It includes proposals of solutions to improve the current financial situation.

Background: While technologies are progressing exponentially and inevitably becoming an essential as a means for business to adapt and survive, no exception is the finance division. Digitalization activities have become do or die tasks for many companies and have been a challenging process for finance departments. Yet, in the context of Finance 4.0 it is barely researched. Due to evolving understanding of how finance departments should look, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as the leader of the whole finance division is going through a lot of changes surrounded by uncertainty. The expectations for CFO and finance department are increasing and it becomes unclear what financial specialists should actually deliver for business. Hence, this paper aims to identify how CFO’s role is changing because of Finance 4.0, otherwise known as finance function digitalization, and what skills will be needed to successfully work as CFO in the new environment that seeks to become fully digital and automated. Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis research is to identify and analyze how the CFO’s role is changing because of Finance 4.0 and what skills will be required in future for the CFO position.  Method: A qualitative study with interpretivism philosophy, inductive approach and narrative inquiry strategy is taken as the best options for this particular study. Semi-structured interviews with Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) is a method for primary data collection as well as thematic data analysis for gathered data analysis are chosen in order to answer research questions. Conclusion: This research investigates how Finance 4.0 is changing the role of CFO as well as explores what future skills are required for the profession. The research clearly reveals that digitalization is affecting CFO’s role significantly and brings more uncertainty. Research results show that fundamental responsibilities of a CFO will not undergo changes any time soon as well as the skills required for work will remain largely the same. This is because the professional skills of a CFO directly reflect the responsibilities and working tasks, and, moreover, the finance departments are not completely undigitized. However, even though the foundation of the CFO role remains the same, digital disruption causes expansion and increased complexity. While existing academic knowledge is focused mostly on the change process itself and the benefits of digitalization, CFOs revealed what is challenging for them during this digital journey and what negative effect they have experienced.

This dissertation explores the role of information frictions in the design of financial securities, the pricing of securities, and their business cycle implications. The first essay studies the risk- shifting problem between bondholders and shareholders, and the moral hazard problem between shareholders and the manager. Although, these two problems have been studied separately, my model is the first tractable frame-work to study these two frictions jointly. Using my model, I explore: i) How the presence of managerial moral hazard affects the risk-shifting problem, and ii) How optimal policies of the firm change in terms of leverage, managerial compensation, and investment decisions when the two problems are considered jointly. I show that the optimal amount of risk-shifting is amplified in the presence of managerial moral hazard. Moreover, my model delivers a non-monotonic relation between risk-shifting and leverage. This non-monotonicity has the potential to reconcile seemingly contradictory empirical evidence on the sign of this relation. The second essay (coauthored with Jianjun Miao) studies the design of an optimal contract for the manager when the shareholders are concerned about model misspecification. The model delivers counter-cyclical firm level equity premium, and has interesting implications for security design. The third essay incorporates accounting practices into models that generate business cycles through borrowing constraints. I show that the interaction of accounting frictions with the borrowing constraint has implications for the persistence and amplification of macroeconomic shocks.

This master's thesis analyzes the impact of euro implementation on corporation finance of a particular company. Czech Republic's accesion to the monetary union will entail positive and negative changes that will affect all entities in the economy. In this thesis, these impacts are analyzed and their expected net effect on the company is determined. The conclusion is focused on the evaluation of the impact of the single currency on the company, identification of the main risks associated with the necessary transformations and suggestion of the recommendations that will help the company to a successful transition to the euro.

This dissertation consists of three chapters. First two chapters examines how nonprofit organizations (NPOs) react to the state level minimum wage increases, and the third chapter studies the effect of board interlock on the diffusion of innovation.In the first chapter, I investigate the impact of minimum wage increases on employment. I extend the literature by hypothesizing and showing a differential impact of state-level minimum wage increases on nonprofit organizations relative to for-profit organizations. While I find that increases in minimum wages reduce employment growth in both types of organizations, this decrease is substantially larger for nonprofit organizations. I also find that investment in automation, i.e., information technology, rises in nonprofits post minimum wage increase, consistent with the substitution of capital for labor. Minimum wage increases also increase the likelihood of nonprofit exit. In the second chapter, I investigate how CEO pay in nonprofit organizations responds to an exogeneous increase in labor cost resulting from state-level minimum wage hikes. I find that these increases in labor cost, which constrain budgets, are followed by declines in the total pay of NPO CEOs. In contrast, I do not find an impact on CEO pay in for-profit companies. I attribute the differential response between NPO and for-profit organizations to NPO CEOs acting as stewards of the NPO, whereby they are willing to take less to ensure the continued existence of the enterprise, as well as fulfillment of its mission. This phenomenon has previously been observed in the nonprofit sector and termed labor donation, whereby individuals who work for NPOs are intrinsically motivated and consequently, are willing to work for less money. Cross-sectionally I find the declines in compensation are larger in NPOs headquartered in smaller counties, in counties with higher levels of religiosity, and in counties with greater levels of social capital, and in NPOs that are run by their founders. In the last chapter, I propose that board interlocks can act as a channel of information transmission and social learning, hence enhancing the diffusion of innovation among firms. I find that a firm’s patents are more likely to be cited by patents from firms that have common directors (i.e., interlocked firm). The result is robust under a difference-in-differences setting, where the death or retirement of interlocking directors is used as an exogeneous shock to board interlock. The effect is more pronounced for interlocking directors who have longer experience in R&D-intensive industries, have a larger network, and have a higher compensation delta. While I find that board interlock enhances the diffusion of innovation across industries, it has no effect on within-industry knowledge diffusion. Finally, I document that board interlock enhances firms’ overall innovation output, measured by patent counts and citation counts per patent. The paper sheds light on an important role played by board of directors in promoting knowledge spillover and innovation. / Business Administration/Finance

This research paper explores differences in company performance levels, as measured by selected company fundamentals and annual return, with regard to the marital status of top executives, specifically the chief executive officer and the chief financial officer. It examines whether the differences in firm performance are determined by the marital status of the respective business executive. Groups of never married, married, and divorced executives are compared against each other to establish if and how the company performance changes between these groups. Summary statistics of the examined variables in conjunction with the results of the simple and multiple regression analyses indicate that marriage clearly has a detrimental effect on a firm’s performance. By contrast, divorce is beneficial as it contributes to improved firm performance. As previous research has revealed, professional performance of top executives, particularly CEOs, as well as money managers is influenced by distractions originating in their personal life events. Because human attention is naturally limited, major life events, such as marriage or divorce, can have detrimental effects on the professional performance of a business executive, and therefore also on the firm performance. Consistent with the results of previous research, the data analysis identifies marital status of CEOs and CFOs as a significant determinant of firm performance.

In this thesis, I investigate the amount of underpricing in FinTech companies compared to non-FinTech companies. Both data sets contain thirty companies spanning from 1993 to 2018. Each FinTech company is matched to a non-FinTech company by year and comparatively similar revenue. Prior research explores underpricing on different industries, but it hasn’t yet explored underpricing in the FinTech segment. The variables considered in this paper are offer price, close price, shares offered, number of banks involved, fees per share, and money left on the table. I find some evidence that the average amount of underpricing in both dollars and by percent is higher with non-FinTech companies than FinTech companies. However, difference in means tests show statistically significant differences only for the number of shares offered. It cannot be reliably said whether investors perceive a higher risk in FinTech companies or non-FinTech companies.

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