This two-year longitudinal study sought to describe and evaluate a newly developed information and communication technology (ICT) environment and the associated schoolbased ICT professional development (PD) project within a State Government primary school. The overall aim of the research study was to investigate the most effective requirements to support teachers to be skilled, knowledgeable and confident in the use of ICT in their teaching roles. The teachers were the focus of the Research Study and not the students. The ICT environment and the professional development project's effectiveness was evaluated using data collected from participating teachers and the literature regarding components of effective ICT professional development. The Research Study used qualitative and interpretive methods to illuminate and expand on what it means to provide effective ICT PD within the primary school context. The components of the ICT-enhanced environment were studied in detail to provide feedback and findings that may also be useful in other educational settings with modification. The study provided evidence that, apart from providing and developing individual ICT PD components, a collection of inter-related components was necessary at the same time for successful ICT PD to be achieved. The components of the PD project have been discussed individually and collectively in terms of their effect on the research subjects, the teachers themselves. Four global factors were identified for effective ICT PD and they were used as a framework for the study. These were teacher characteristics, authenticity, support and the ICT-enhanced environment.

[pt] Esse estudo examina a estrutura de dependência do mercado de ações do Brasil, Chile, Colômbia, México e Peru em relação aos retornos do preço de commodities, do mercado de ações global e sua volatilidade e do índice de incerteza político-econômica americana. A metodologia empregada é a regressão quantílica por permitir o exame da dependência nos diferentes quantis de distribuição dos retornos, ou seja, sob diferentes circunstâncias de mercado. Os resultados mostraram que há dependência em relação ao mercado global de ações em todos os países. De uma maneira geral, os preços das commodities também influenciam no retorno do mercado acionários da América Latina, sendo a estrutura de dependência, por vezes, assimétrica. O índice de incerteza político-econômica americano não impacta o mercado acionário de Chile e Peru, ao passo que a estrutura de dependência é assimétrica e negativa no Brasil, Colômbia e México. Por fim, o índice VIX não é significante para os retornos do mercados de ações de Brasil e Peru. Como uma contribuição adicional, foi examinada a relação de dependência do mercado acionário brasileiro em relação ao índice de incerteza político-econômico brasileiro. O estudo identificou que variações positivas do índice de incerteza político-econômico brasileiro levam a quedas no retorno acionário, quando o mercado está em ascensão. Os resultados desse estudo contribuem para a compreensão dos movimentos dos retornos do mercado acionário do Brasil e de outros países da América Latina em relação a diversos fatores, os quais são do interesse de diversos stakeholders, tais como investidores internacionais e gestores de portfólio. / [en] This study examines the dependence structure between the stock markets of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru and the commodity price, the global stock market and its volatility, and the U.S. economic-policy uncertainty index. The methodology employed is the quantile regression because it allows to exam the dependence in different quantiles of the returns distribution, that is, under different market circumstances. The results showed that there is dependence on the global stock market in all countries. In general, commodity prices also influence the stock markets of Latin America, with the dependence structure being often asymmetric. The U.S. economic-policy uncertainty index doesn t impact the stock markets of Chile and Peru, while the dependence structure is negative and asymmetric in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. Finally, the VIX index is not significant for the stock market returns in Brazil and Peru. As an additional contribution, the dependence of the brazilian stock market in relation to the Brazil economic-policy uncertainty index. The study identified that positive changes in the political-economic uncertainty index lead to declines in shareholder returns, when the market is bullish. The results of this study contribute to understand the movements of stock market returns in Brazil and other Latin American countries in relation to several factors, which are of interest to several stakeholders, such as international investors and portfolio managers.

Le lien entre le choix d’allocation des fonds mutuels et l’information privée que possède leurs gérants sur des facteurs globaux de risque n’a pas été largement analysé. La littérature manque également d'études concernant l'impact de l’information privée globale sur la performance des fonds mutuels investis en actions. Notre travail vise à apporter de nouveaux éclairages sur ce sujet en montrant que l’information privée sur des facteurs globaux de risque est cruciale pour le choix d’investissements et pour la performance des fonds mutuels lorsqu’ils investissent à l’étranger.Dans le premier papier, nous étudions comment l’information privée sur les facteurs globaux, détenue par les gérants des fonds, impacte leurs performances. Après avoir utilisé plusieurs modèles de performances et plusieurs caractéristiques managériales, nous constatons un impact positif et significatif de l'information globale privée sur la performance des fonds mutuels globaux américains. Nous montrons que l’information globale qui permet de générer de la performance est celle qui concerne les secteurs industriels. Ceci est cohérent avec les résultats d'Albuquerque et al. (2009) et de Hiraki et al. (2015). Nous montrons également que l'utilisation du degré de concentration sectorielle (DSC) est un indicateur bruité de l’avantage informationnel possédé par les gérants. Le degré de concentration sectorielle affecte positivement la performance des fonds durant les périodes de stabilité financière. Cependant, cet impact positif n'est significatif que pour les fonds ayant un fort avantage informationnel sur les facteurs globaux.Dans le deuxième article de cette thèse, nous cherchons à éclaircir les choix d'allocation des fonds globaux et l’évaluation de leurs performances au cours de la récente crise des subprimes. Spécifiquement, nous examinons si c’est l’avantage informationnel de leurs gérants sur des facteurs globaux de risque ou leur familiarité avec certains marchés financiers étrangers qui a guidé leur choix d’investissement et leur a permis d’accroître leur performance durant cette crise. Nous contrôlons nos résultats pour le rôle du degré de transparence des marchés financiers ainsi que le degré de protection des investisseurs. Nous constatons que l’avantage informationnel sur les facteurs globaux (industriels) de risque contribue positivement à la création de la performance des fonds sur toute la période d’étude. La «fuite vers la familiarité» au cours de la période de la récente crise financière est nuisible pour la performance des fonds et peut être considérée comme étant un biais. Les gestionnaires de fonds qui recherchent à investir dans des titres familiers pendant la période de crise financière ne créent pas de valeur pour leurs clients.Dans notre troisième papier, nous examinons les déterminants de la stratégie de rotation des portefeuilles dans différentes industries et l’impact de cette stratégie sur la performance des fonds globaux américains. Nous constatons que les fonds mutuels qui s'engagent dans des stratégies de rotation sectorielle améliorent leur performance. Ce résultat est conforme aux résultats de la littérature qui suggèrent que les fonds gérés activement sont plus performants. De plus, nous constatons que la stratégie de rotation industrielle des fonds est influencée positivement et significativement par l’avantage informationnel des gérants sur les facteurs globaux de risque. Cette étude est en accord avec plusieurs articles de la littérature qui soulignent l'importance croissante de l’information sectorielle pour la gestion d’actifs (Hiraki et al., 2015; Schumacher, 2017). Ce papier confirme également différents arguments selon lesquels la rotation sectorielle pourrait être considérée comme une stratégie optimale pour le choix de portefeuille dans le contexte d’internationalisation des marchés financiers (Weiss, 1998, Cavaglia et al., 2004). / This dissertation responds to a lack within the literature about the impact of private global information on mutual funds portfolio holdings and performance. We conduct three essays that aim to explain different controversial topics about the global funds’ performance and investments choices.In the first paper we examine how the private information on global factors is affecting US global funds’ trading profits. After controlling for different performance benchmark models and for several managerial fund characteristics, we find a positive and significant impact of the private global information on mutual funds’ performance. The fund’s informational advantage on global factors is industry-specific rather than country-specific, consistent with the results of Albuquerque et al. (2009) and Hiraki et al. (2015). We also argue that the use of the degree of sector concentration (DSC) as a proxy for the manager’s informational advantage (as employed in some recent papers) is noisy. The performance of funds is mainly driven by the proxy of private information on industrial factors and not by its degree of sector concentration. DSC affects positively the trading profits of funds in periods of good financial stability. However, this positive impact is only significant for funds with a high informational advantage on global factors.In the second paper, we investigate whether this is the private global information or the familiarity with foreign markets which has driven the performance of global funds during the recent subprime crisis. In fact, it has been shown within the literature that fund managers tend to hold familiar stocks during periods of heightened markets. We find that the private information on global factors of risk is the main driver of funds’ performance for the 2005-2016 period including the subprime crisis period. This result holds when considering different familiarity, market transparency and investor’s protection proxies and when employing different performance benchmark models. On the opposite, the familiarity proxies reverse their effect during the financial crisis period. We show that the “flight to familiarity” within this period is detrimental for funds’ performance and rather can be assessed as a bias. Managers that seek familiarity during periods of financial crisis to be “on the safe side” do not create value for their investors. Our results also suggest that during periods of heightened market uncertainties, fund managers can benefit from processing information on industrial factors, consistent with the findings of Albuquerque et al. (2009) and Hiraki et al. (2015).In our third and last paper, we investigate the determinants of fund’s portfolio rebalancing decisions of foreign holdings that belong to different industries and their relative implication on US global funds’ performance. We find that mutual funds that engage in industrial sector rotation strategies enhance their performance. This result is consistent with the literature view that actively managed funds perform better. Moreover, we find that the fund’s industrial rebalancing activity is positively and significantly affected by its informational advantage on global factors. This study is in line with several papers that highlighted the increasing importance of global industry factors for asset allocation (Hiraki et al., 2015; Schumacher, 2017) and consistent with different arguments stating that industry sector rotation can be optimal for future global investing especially with the increasing integration of capital markets (Weiss, 1998; Cavaglia et al., 2004).

Stocks, Bonds, and Long-Run Consumption Risks. Bansal and Yaron (2004) show that long-run consumption risks and time-varying economic uncertainty in conjunction with recursive preferences can account for important features of equity markets. I bring the model to the term structure of interest rates and show that a calibrated version of the model can simultaneously explain properties of bonds and equities. Specifically, the model accounts for deviations from the expectations hypothesis, the upward sloping nominal yield curve, and the predictive power of the nominal yield spread. However, an estimation of the model using Simulated Method of Moments yields less convincing results and illustrates the difficulty of precisely estimating parameters of the model. Real (nominal) interest rates in the model are positively (negatively) correlated with consumption growth and real stock returns move inversely with inflation. The cyclicality of nominal interest rates and yield spreads is shown to depend on the relative values of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution and the correlation between real consumption growth and inflation. The “Fed-model” and the Changing Correlation of Stock and Bond Returns: An Equilibrium Approach. This paper presents an equilibrium model that provides a rational explanation for two features of data that have been considered puzzling: The positive relation between US dividend yields and nominal interest rates, often called the Fed-model, and the time-varying correlation of US stock and bond returns. Key ingredients are time-varying first and second moments of consumption growth, inflation, and dividend growth in conjunction with Epstein-Zin and Weil recursive preferences. Historically in the US, inflation has signaled low future consumption growth. The representative agent therefore dislikes positive inflation shocks and demands a positive risk premium for holding assets that are poor inflation hedges, such as equity and nominal bonds. As a result, risk premiums on equity and nominal bonds comove positively through their exposure to macroeconomic volatility. This generates a positive correlation between dividend yields and nominal yields and between stock and bond returns. High levels of macro volatility in the late 1970s and early 1980s caused stock and bond returns to comove strongly. The subsequent moderation in aggregate economic risk has brought correlations lower. The model is able to produce correlations that can switch sign by including the covariances between consumption growth, inflation, and dividend growth as state variables. International Bond Risk Premia. We extend Cochrane and Piazzesi (2005, CP) to international bond markets by constructing forecasting factors for bond excess returns across different countries. While the international evidence for predictability is weak using Fama and Bliss (1987) regressions, we document that local CP factors have significant predictive power. We also construct a global CP factor and provide evidence that it predicts bond returns with high R2 across countries. The local and global factors are jointly significant when included as regressors, which suggests that variation in bond excess returns are driven by country-specific factors and a common global factor. Shocks to US bond risk premia seem to be particularly important determinants for international bond premia. Motivated by these results, we estimate a parsimonious no-arbitrage affine term structure model in which risk premia are driven by one local and one global CP factor. We find that international bond risk premia are driven by a local slope factor and a world interest rate level factor.