Utilizando informações financeiras de 226 firmas brasileiras nos anos de 2000 até 2015, este estudo buscou investigar se a mispricing (avaliação equivocada do preço das ações) presente no mercado financeiro possui influência nas decisões de investimento dessas firmas. A restrição financeira também foi incorporada ao modelo ao se utilizar os índices KZ, WW e SA na classificação das firmas: financeiramente restrito e financeiramente não restrito. Buscou-se evidenciar como firmas financeiramente restritas e irrestritas ajustam suas fontes de recursos financeiros em resposta à avaliação equivocado dos preços das ações. Estimou-se através do GMM-System um modelo de investimento dinâmico considerando as variáveis de investimento defasado e quadrático, fluxo de caixa, alavancagem, crescimentos das vendas, q de Tobin, e como proxy da mispricing, Accruals discricionárias e Composite Share Issuance. Os principais resultados apontaram que a mispricing atua de maneira positiva no nível de investimento das empresas brasileiras. Elevadas accruals e CSI contribuem para o que o investimento seja impulsionado em virtude da sobrevalorização dos preços das ações e consequente valoração de mercado das firmas. Essa sobrevalorização torna possível a captação de recursos via mercado e a implantação de novos projetos. Os efeitos da mispricing podem inclusive auxiliar na superação de questões de sub-investimentos e propiciar o aumento dos investimentos na economia, atuando como \"relaxador\" das restrições financeiras e incentivando a execução de projetos eficientes. / Through financial information from 226 Brazilian firms between 2000 and 2015, this study investigated whether mispricing in the financial market influences the firm\'s investment decisions. The financial constraint was also incorporated in the study using the KZ, WW and SA indices to classify the firms into two groups: financially and non-financially constraint. It was expected to evidence how financially and non-financially constraint firms adjust their sources of resources in response to stock prices misjudgment. A dynamic investment model was estimated using the GMM-System, considering the lagged and quadratic investment variables, cash flow, leverage, sales growth, Tobin\'s q, and as a proxy for mispricing, discretionary accruals and Composite Share Issuance. The main results pointed out that mispricing acts positively on the level of investments of Brazilian companies. High accruals and CSI would contribute to the investment being boosted by the overvaluation of stock prices and the consequent market value of the firms. This overvaluation would allow the capture of resources via the market and the implementation of new projects. The mispricing effects could also indicate the issues of underinvestment and allow the increase of investments in the economy, presenting a \"relaxing\" effect of financial constraints and encouraging the execution of efficient projects.

Utilizando informações financeiras de 226 firmas brasileiras nos anos de 2000 até 2015, este estudo buscou investigar se a mispricing (avaliação equivocada do preço das ações) presente no mercado financeiro possui influência nas decisões de investimento dessas firmas. A restrição financeira também foi incorporada ao modelo ao se utilizar os índices KZ, WW e SA na classificação das firmas: financeiramente restrito e financeiramente não restrito. Buscou-se evidenciar como firmas financeiramente restritas e irrestritas ajustam suas fontes de recursos financeiros em resposta à avaliação equivocado dos preços das ações. Estimou-se através do GMM-System um modelo de investimento dinâmico considerando as variáveis de investimento defasado e quadrático, fluxo de caixa, alavancagem, crescimentos das vendas, q de Tobin, e como proxy da mispricing, Accruals discricionárias e Composite Share Issuance. Os principais resultados apontaram que a mispricing atua de maneira positiva no nível de investimento das empresas brasileiras. Elevadas accruals e CSI contribuem para o que o investimento seja impulsionado em virtude da sobrevalorização dos preços das ações e consequente valoração de mercado das firmas. Essa sobrevalorização torna possível a captação de recursos via mercado e a implantação de novos projetos. Os efeitos da mispricing podem inclusive auxiliar na superação de questões de sub-investimentos e propiciar o aumento dos investimentos na economia, atuando como \"relaxador\" das restrições financeiras e incentivando a execução de projetos eficientes. / Through financial information from 226 Brazilian firms between 2000 and 2015, this study investigated whether mispricing in the financial market influences the firm\'s investment decisions. The financial constraint was also incorporated in the study using the KZ, WW and SA indices to classify the firms into two groups: financially and non-financially constraint. It was expected to evidence how financially and non-financially constraint firms adjust their sources of resources in response to stock prices misjudgment. A dynamic investment model was estimated using the GMM-System, considering the lagged and quadratic investment variables, cash flow, leverage, sales growth, Tobin\'s q, and as a proxy for mispricing, discretionary accruals and Composite Share Issuance. The main results pointed out that mispricing acts positively on the level of investments of Brazilian companies. High accruals and CSI would contribute to the investment being boosted by the overvaluation of stock prices and the consequent market value of the firms. This overvaluation would allow the capture of resources via the market and the implementation of new projects. The mispricing effects could also indicate the issues of underinvestment and allow the increase of investments in the economy, presenting a \"relaxing\" effect of financial constraints and encouraging the execution of efficient projects.

<div>I examine movements in the closing price that are different than the movements of the high and low prices on a given day. I construct the measure HLDiff which accumulates the differences between the high-low midpoint return and the closing price return over a month. Instances in which the closing price deviates from the movements in the midpoint between the high and low are a strong predictor of future abnormal returns. The predictive power of the HLDiff measure holds across size groups and sub-periods and holds in the presence of other common determinants of stock returns. The predictive power of HLDiff appears to be driven by the existence of market frictions. Specifically, I find that the premium associated with a factor constructed based on HLDiff is consistent with short-selling constraints inhibiting the correction of overpricing. The factor also appears to improve the pricing ability of the single-factor and five-factor models.</div>

This thesis first examines the determinants of earnings management in an international setting using the Limited Investor Attention Model of Hirshleifer and Teoh (2003). The model predicts that investor attention reduces earnings management. I have four key findings. First, I document that financial analysts curb adjusted absolute abnormal accruals and absolute performance-matched abnormal accruals in global firms. Second, I document that institutional block-holdings curb adjusted absolute abnormal accruals across the world. Third, I document that analyst following is related to more reduction in earnings management in common law countries than in code-law countries. Fourth, I find that institutional block-holders are more effective monitors in common law countries than in code law countries. This thesis also examines the relation between investor attention and stock mispricing of abnormal accruals in an international setting using the Limited Investor Attention Model of Hirshleifer and Teoh (2003). Consistent with the model’s hypothesis that investor attention reduces stock mispricing, I document three key findings. First, I find a significant and negative correlation between stock mispricing and analyst following in global firms. Second, stock mispricing is negatively correlated with institutional ownership in U.S. firms. Stock mispricing is not significantly correlated with institutional block-holdings in global firms. Third, stock mispricing per dollar of abnormal accrual is decreasing in analyst following for sufficiently large abnormal accruals in U.S. and global firms.

This thesis first examines the determinants of earnings management in an international setting using the Limited Investor Attention Model of Hirshleifer and Teoh (2003). The model predicts that investor attention reduces earnings management. I have four key findings. First, I document that financial analysts curb adjusted absolute abnormal accruals and absolute performance-matched abnormal accruals in global firms. Second, I document that institutional block-holdings curb adjusted absolute abnormal accruals across the world. Third, I document that analyst following is related to more reduction in earnings management in common law countries than in code-law countries. Fourth, I find that institutional block-holders are more effective monitors in common law countries than in code law countries. This thesis also examines the relation between investor attention and stock mispricing of abnormal accruals in an international setting using the Limited Investor Attention Model of Hirshleifer and Teoh (2003). Consistent with the model’s hypothesis that investor attention reduces stock mispricing, I document three key findings. First, I find a significant and negative correlation between stock mispricing and analyst following in global firms. Second, stock mispricing is negatively correlated with institutional ownership in U.S. firms. Stock mispricing is not significantly correlated with institutional block-holdings in global firms. Third, stock mispricing per dollar of abnormal accrual is decreasing in analyst following for sufficiently large abnormal accruals in U.S. and global firms.

Yes / This study uses short selling activity to test whether the relation between fundamentals and future returns is due to rational pricing or mispricing. We find that short sellers target firms with fundamental performance below market expectations. We also show that short selling activity reduces the return predictability of fundamentals by speeding up the price adjustments to negative fundamental signals. To further investigate whether the returns earned by short sellers reflect rational risk premia or mispricing, we exploit a natural experiment, namely Regulation of SHO, which creates exogenous shocks to short selling by temporarily relaxing short-sale constraints. Evidence from the experiment confirms that the superior returns to short sellers result from exploiting overpricing. Overall, our study suggests that the return predictability of fundamentals reflects mispricing rather than rational risk premia.

In the first essay, I create a hedge fund informed trading measure (ITM) that separates information related trades from liquidity driven trades. The results indicate that ITM predicts future stock returns at the trade level, thus is associated with information. By aggregating the most informed trades at the stock level, I find that stocks heavily purchased by informed hedge funds earn a significant alpha. The results indicate that the ITM performs better than some previously documented measures and is robust to two different versions of the measure. The second essay exploits the expiring nature of hedge fund lockups to create a new, within-fund proxy of funding liquidity risk. When funds have lower funding liquidity risk, risk-adjusted performance improves and exposure to tail risk increases. We use fund fixed-effect, a placebo approach, and a regression discontinuity design to establish a link between funding liquidity risk and the ability of funds to capitalize on risky mispricing. The third essay explores hedge fund managers ability to identify and trade on stock mispricing opportunity. We refer to the amount of capital that are is locked up and refrained from redemption as the stable capital, and study how it affects stock mispricing. We find that when funds have more lockup capital, they are more likely to take mispricing risks. Taking all funds together, more stable capital in the industry is driving the reduction or even correction of market-wide stock mispricing. Underpriced stocks benefit more than overpriced stock from hedge funds stable capital.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the "limits of arbitrage" on securities mispricing. Specifically, I investigate the effect of the availability of substitutes and financial constraints on stock mispricing. In addition, this study investigates the difference in the limits of arbitrage, in the sense that it will lead to lower mispricing for these stocks, relative to non-S&P 500 stocks. I also examine if the lower mispricing can be attributed to their lower limits of arbitrage. Modern finance theory and efficient market hypothesis suggest that security prices, at equilibrium, should reflect their fundamental value. If the market price deviates from the intrinsic value, then a risk-free profit opportunity has emerged and arbitrageurs will eliminate mispricing and equilibrium is restored. This arbitrage process is characterized by large number of arbitrageurs which have infinite access to capital. However, a better description of reality is that there are few numbers of arbitrageurs to the extent that they are highly specialized; and they have limited access to capital. Under these condition arbitrage is no more a risk-free activity and can be limited by several factors such as arbitrage risk and transaction costs. Other factors that are discussed in the literature are availability of substitutes and financial constraints. The former arises as a result of the specialization of arbitrageurs in the market in which they operate, while the latter arises as a result of the separation between arbitrageurs and capital. In this dissertation, I develop a measure of the availability of substitutes that is based on the propensity scores obtained from propensity score matching technique. In addition, I use the absolute value of skewness of returns as a proxy of financial constraints. Previous studies used the limits of arbitrage framework to explain pricing puzzles such as the closed-end fund discounts. However, closed-end fund discounts are highly affected by uncertainty of managerial ability and agency problems. This study overcomes this problem by studying the effect of limits of arbitrage on publicly traded securities. The results show that there is a significant relationship between proxies of limits of arbitrage and firm specific mispricing. More importantly, empirical results indicate that stocks that have no close substitutes have higher mispricing. In addition, stocks that have high skewness show higher mispricing. Subsequent studies show that the S&P 500 stocks have different levels of liquidity, analysts’ coverage and volatility. These characteristics affect the ability of arbitrageurs to eliminate mispricing. Preliminary univariate tests show that S&P 500 stocks have, on average, lower mispricing and limits of arbitrage relative to non-S&P 500 stocks. In addition, the multivariate test shows that S&P 500 members have, on average, lower mispricing relative to non-S&P 500 stocks.

In this study, I examine whether the pricing of book-tax differences reflects mispricing or a priced risk factor. I provide new evidence that temporary book-tax differences are mispriced by developing portfolios that trade on the information in book-tax differences for future accruals and cash flows. I develop and test predictions on whether book-tax difference mispricing is the value-glamour anomaly in disguise. Both signals of mispricing relate to firm growth and, thus, both may capture mispricing due to over-extrapolation of realized growth to future growth. I find that the book-tax difference pricing anomaly is subsumed by the value-glamour anomaly. Specifically, trading on the information in book-tax differences does not yield incremental returns relative to a value-glamour trading strategy. Hence, mispricing associated with book-tax differences relates more generally to the mispricing of expected growth as extrapolated from past growth.

I examine the informational efficiency of stock markets by testing the relation between idiosyncratic volatility and equity mispricing. I find that the level of mispricing declines with idiosyncratic volatility consistent with the notion that greater levels of firm-specific risk reflect greater participation of informed traders in the market for the stock. However, I also find that mispricing increases with idiosyncratic volatility for highly volatile stocks, and this is attributed to both noise trading and arbitrage risk. In addition, I investigate the link between agency costs and equity mispricing, and whether it exists due to information asymmetry or the degree of conflict of interests between managers and shareholders. I provide evidence that the level of agency costs is positively related with mispricing. In contrast to previous studies' claim that the information asymmetry level is a key determinant in the equity mispricing, I find that the conflict of interests is more important than information asymmetry in explaining equity mispricing. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that stock option grants, originally intended to resolve conflicts of interests, actually exaggerate this problem.