Thesis (PhD) - Faculty of Higher Education, Lilydale, Swinburne University of Technology, 2009. / Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy, Faculty of Higher Education, Lilydale, Swinburne University of Technology - 2009. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. ??-??)

Diss. Stockholm : Univ., 2007.

In order to boost the exit value, it is not uncommon that issuers report earnings in excess of cash flow generated by its operations at the initial public offering (IPO). The discretionary activity of performing earnings management can mislead investors about the intrinsic value of the newly public firm. Within this study, I examine how earnings management will affect the stock market reaction upon the lockup expiration date, the IPO adjustable offering size, and how the backing of private equity or venture capital (PEVC) affects earnings management tendencies within IPO firms. Using a unique, hand-collected dataset of 56 Swedish newly public firms from 2007 - 2014, I show that IPO firms (i) manage their earnings at the full fiscal year prior to the IPO and that earnings management will result in a negative stock market reaction upon the lockup expiration date. More importantly, I show that (ii) high adjustable offerings do not affect this relationship indicating that earnings management has no impact on the adjustable part of the offering size within IPOs. I also find that (iii) IPO firms backed by PEVC firms are more eager to manipulate their earnings, and (iv) highly reputable PEVC firms do not mitigate the manipulation of earnings within IPO firms. The results taken together suggest that studying the stock market reaction on the lockup expiration date is important for manipulative IPO firm detection, and that a participation in IPOs backed by PEVC firms must be done with caution.

The stock of human capital plays an important role for a sustained economic development, both at the individual and the country level. In order to prosper as a middle income country Vietnam need to increase the nation ́s human capital stock and this thesis shows that human capital theory holds for investments in years of education, knowledge of a foreign language and experience. Human capital investments, such as educational attainment and knowledge of a foreign language, are estimated to have significant impact on earnings in year 2012. Subjective evidence through interviews and observations are used to understand the underlying interpretation of these results in order to see how the labor market actually works in Vietnam.

published_or_final_version / Business / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Over the last decade, a significant number of overseas Chinese including Hong Kong emigrants have returned to Hong Kong. Many returnees, especially those who learnt Chinese as a heritage language, often encounter various language difficulties upon their return mainly due to their incompletely acquired version of the Chinese language. However, there is little research on the Chinese language learning and teaching for this special community, which is inherently different from native Chinese learners or second-language learners. This work explores various pioneering ways to develop returnees’ greater fluency in the Chinese language and especially to improve their practical literacy skills. We intend to evaluate and further develop their awareness of the orthographic principles operating in Chinese characters. We believe that this is a key step to help Chinese returnees quickly integrate themselves to the local society. / published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Bakgrund: Thomsen och Pedersen (2007), Abrahamson och De Ridder (2014), Fama och Jensen (1983), Gilson (2006) samt Michel et al. (2013) kommer samtliga fram till att ett bolags ägarstruktur samt att en kontrollägare har en direkt positiv påverkan på ett bolags prestation och dess avkastning. Detta kan förklaras genom den agentproblematik som existerar i ett bolag. Eftersom det vid börsintroduktioner ofta sker stora ägarförändringar är studier av ägarstrukturens påverkan på avkastningen, särskilt intressanta just vid börsintroduktioner samtidigt som det saknas fördjupade studier gällande hur ägarstrukturen påverkar avkastningen i svenska bolag.     Syfte: Syftet med studien är att förklara hur ägarstrukturen påverkar avkastningen för IPO:s.   Metod: Studien omfattar ett urval om totalt 47 bolag, som introducerats på den svenska börsen under åren 2006 - 2013. Urvalet har kategoriserats efter intervall avseende ägarandelar och sedan analyserats. Korrelations-tester har använts för att se ifall det existerar ett samband mellan variablerna  samt regressionsanalyser har genomförts för att se hur den riskjusterade avkastningen förhåller sig till ett bolags ägarstruktur.  Med hjälp av buy-and-hold abnormal return (BHAR) har regressionstesterna genomförts, som kontrollerats med inklusive och exklusive företagsspecifika kontrollvariabler.   Resultat: Våra resultat visar att ägarstrukturen har en viss men begränsad påverkan på avkastningen. I intervallet 20 – 80 procent finns dock en tydlig positiv påverkan på avkastningen. / Title: The ownership structure’s impact on revenue of IPOs – an analysis of the Swedish market   Background: Thomsen and Persson (2007), Abrahamson and De Ridder (2014), Fama and Jensen (1983), Gilson (2006) and Michel et al. (2013), all front that company's ownership structure and that a controlling shareholder has a direct positive impact on a company's performance and its returns. This can be explained by the agentproblem that exist in a company. As it often happens big changes in ownership at IPOs (Initial Public Offerings) are studies of ownership structure's impact on performance, particularly interesting just at IPOs. There are also no in-depth studies on how ownership structure affects the return of Swedish companies.   Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain how the ownership structure affects revenue for IPOs.   Method: This study looks at a total of 47 corporations, all of which were introduced to the Swedish market between 2006 - 2013. The selection of corporations has been categorised based on a range of ownership shares and then thoroughly analysed. Correlation tests have been completed in order to find a causal link between variables and also regression analysis to see how the risk adjusted return is related to a company's ownership structure. Through a Buy-and-Hold Abnormal Return (BHAR) regressiontests has been made, and verified by including and excluding corporation-specific control variables.   Result: Our results suggest that the ownership structure has certain but limited effect on revenue. It does, however, indicate that ownership shares within 20-80 percent will have a positive impact on revenue.

American Water Resources Association Symposium Proceedings / Reprinted from Establishment of Water Quality Monitoring Programs / Edited By: Lorne G. Everett and Kenneth D. Schmidt / June 12-14, 1978 / San Francisco, California / Traditional techniques for monitoring the mass flux of pollutants in the vadose zone involve obtaining point samples of solute, either by core sampling of solids, followed by laboratory extraction, or by installation of suction probes. An alternative sampling technique, discussed in this paper, is to sample perched ground water within the vadose zone. Large amounts of water may be pumped for sampling purposes from wells drilled into productive, perched ground -water bodies. Alternatively, cascading water from perched regions may be sampled in wells with perforations above the water table. Analytical results of samples from such wells are more representative of regional conditions than small point samples. Case studies are presented on sampling from perched ground water underlying a point source (an oxidation pond), a line source (an ephemeral stream), and a diffuse source (irrigation return flow).

I compared various MIDAS (mixed data sampling) regression models to predict volatility from one week to one month with different regressors based on the records of Chinese Shanghai composite index. The main regressors are in 2 types, one is the realized power (involving 5-min absolute returns), the other is the quadratic variation, computed by squared returns. And realized power performs best at all the forecast horizons. I also compare the effect of lag numbers in regression, form 1 to 200, and it doesn’t change much after 50. In 3 week and month predict horizons, the fitness result with different lag numbers has a waving type among all the regressors, that implies there exists a seasonal effect which is the same as predict horizons in the lagged variables. At last,the out-of -sample and in-sample result of RV and RAV are quite similar, but in sometimes, out-of sample performs better.