Abstract The investment is often coupled with the valuation. Before taking action, the decision that how to value an investment underlying is a scientific process. Usually, this work is heavily done and associated with an intangible value. Hence, somewhat in reality, the valuation and investment are also an artistic work. This study, using Taiwaneese quarterly data from 1992 to 2001, examines whether the RIV Model and Ohlson(1995) Model are applicable and valid in different industries. Both the RIV Model that equates the market value of a firm¡¦s equity to book value plus the present value of expected abnormal earnings and Ohlson(1995) Model which links the RIV with a linear information dynamic equation of abnormal earnings are accounting-based valuation Model. An emperical results show that the RIV Model is the best suitable for traditional industry, the Ohlson(1995) valuation Model is the best suitable for financial company, and the modified Model developed in this study is suitable for information technology industry. The implications implyed by this study are summarily as the followings¡G 1. Traditional Industry has stepped into mature or falling phase, and will be difficult to have abnormal earnings. The stock price can be explained largely by its book value. The forecasting value and terminal value are comparatively not so important. So the influence of predictive bias becomes less, and the accuracy of estimating intrinsic value will be higher than other industries. Therefore, RIV Model is comparatively suitable for the traditional industry. 2. Financial industry has been a mature one and its turnover is stable. The consecutive mutual relationship of the abnormal earnings is the highest among three industry from experimentation. The difference between RIV and Ohlson Valuation Model is that the latter derived from RIV connected with abnormal earning linear dynamic function, so financial industry is more suitable for Ohlson valuation model. 3. Information Technology Industry is in its growing phase. The turnover is too volatile, so ex-period market information (P-BV)t-1 must be added to acquire a better explanation power of the model. Therefore, The valuation model developed in this research is suitable for IT Industry.

In this report, we explore the theory behind utility-based valuation of stock options. In particular, we focus on the underwater employee stock options, which give rise to an incomplete-market setting. We begin with basic concepts and terminology in stock-option pricing. Then, we review the valuation by replication process both in the binomial model and the Black-Scholes model. These two methods apply to valuation in the complete-market setting. Then we introduce the concept of utility function and utility maximization in the context of portfolio allocation. An example is worked out to demonstrate how to solve the optimization problem subject to a portfolio constraint. In the end, we explore indifference pricing, i.e., utility-based valuation of stock options in an incomplete single-period binomial model. / text

It is well recognised that construction firms encounter risk and are sensitive to trends and volatility in the business environment. Measuring the financial performance of a firm serves as the basis of monitoring and evaluating its management competence, resource allocation and corporate strategy in response to environmental change. Forecasting is paramount in responding to potential problems and perpetuating positive developments that result in sustainable competitiveness. Thus, an enriched understanding and prediction of the financial performance of construction firms are desirable for decision makers and other industry stakeholders. Notwithstanding that, little research attention has been paid to this premise conceptually and empirically. Thus, the overall aim of this study was to model and forecast the general financial performance of Hong Kong construction firms under the dynamic influence of the business environment. This study involved the application of quantitative modelling using various statistical and econometric techniques. Multidimensional firm financial performance was first approximated using factor analysis based on the financial data of local publicly listed construction firms from 1992 to 2010. The factor model uncovers five common financial factors: liquidity, asset, leverage, profitability and activity. The time trends of these factors display diverse and cyclical patterns with irregular cycle periods. Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models were then constructed based on the Box-Jenkins approach, which provided univariate forecasts of the financial factors. The results reaffirmed that ARIMA models were highly effective in forecasting. In conjunction with cross-correlation analysis, multiple linear regression (MLR) models were next used to explore the influence of environmental determinants on firm financial performance. The findings identified different sets of significant leading determinants for different financial factors. They further justified the dominance of sectoral factors in the determination of firm performance. Supported by empirical verification, a theoretical framework depicting the relationships between business environment and firm performance was proposed. In conjunction with cross-correlation analysis, multiple linear regression (MLR) models were next used to explore the influence of environmental determinants on firm financial performance. The findings identified different sets of significant leading determinants for different financial factors. They further justified the dominance of sectoral factors in the determination of firm performance. Supported by empirical verification, a theoretical framework depicting the relationships between business environment and firm performance was proposed. This study is among the first to apply advanced econometric techniques to develop reliable performance measurement and forecasting models. The results improve the theoretical framework by explaining the dynamic relationships between the financial performance and business environment of construction firms. The empirical findings of the quantitative analysis offer new implications for firms’ financial performance and the significant leading determinants in a local context. The outcomes of this study make seminal contributions to current knowledge and practice. / published_or_final_version / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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För att skapa fler jobbtillfällen och driva på BNP-tillväxten i Sverige krävs det att små och medelstora företag får möjligheten att utvecklas och växa. För att klara det krävs det mer kapital från venture capital-marknaden, som är den viktigaste källan av finansiering för ett nystartat företag. Det har dock varit tuffa år för venture capital-bolagen sedan finanskrisen slog till. Den problemformulering som legat till grund för studien var följande: Hur har finanskrisen och den pågående eurokrisen påverkat venture capital-bolagens investeringsprocess? Studien syftade till att undersöka hur finanskrisen och den pågående skuldkrisen i Europa påverkat de svenska venture capital-bolagen och dess marknad. Vidare syftade studien till att redogöra för vilka delar inom investeringsprocessen som förändrats av de senaste åren av kriser. Hur venture capital-bolagen upplever samt arbetar med de problem som kan uppstå mellan dem och portföljbolagen gällande agentproblemen och informationsasymmetrin har även det undersökts. Vi använde oss av en kvantitativ och en kvalitativ undersökning för att genomföra vår studie. Till den kvalitativa undersökningen har vi intervjuat 10 personer som vid tidpunkten för undersökningen hade höga positioner inom vardera venture capital-bolag. Datamaterialet till den kvantitativa undersökningen baserades på SVCAs kvartals-, halvårs- och årsrapporter. Studien har i huvudsak baserats på teorier gjorda i andra länder på grund av bristfällig forskning i Sverige. De områden som avhandlats är inom riskkapital, agentteori, informationsasymmetri, investeringsprocessen samt yttre faktorers påverkan på venture capital. Studiens slutsatser var att förändringar skett inom venture capital-marknaden på grund av finans- och eurokrisen. Antalet investeringar och det investerade kapitalet hade minskat. Dessutom visade vår undersökning att den enda delen i investeringsprocessen som påverkats av kriserna är när venture capital-bolagen ska avyttra sina innehav. Vi fann även att agentproblemet och informationsasymmetrin existerar samt att alla respondenter använder sig av syndikering.

Abstract available in pdf file.

Computers and business systems are used more frequently in a world where IT gradually is taking over. This is also true when it comes to the real estate valuation process where actors on the Swedish real estate market are using automatic valuation systems for real estate appraisal. But the real estate agents have not yet seen the charm in using these automatic valuation systems for real estate appraisal. Can the real estate agents also use the automatic valuation systems? We developed our three main subjects: the valuation process, an automatic valuation system and the real estate market with assistance from scientific articles. Through these articles we will present a background to real estate appraisal in general. We choose a qualitative approach where we interviewed eight real estate agents and complemented this by conducting a telephone interview with a business area manager at a private valuation institute. The result of this paper shows that the real estate firms rely on data from earlier purchases and that they use different IT-based tools in order to make an accurate appraisal. An automatic valuation system with extended information can be very helpful for the real estate agents depending on which part of the country the real estate agent works in. However the automatic valuation system can never replace the ocular inspection. In neighbourhoods where the houses look the same there’s a greater need for an extended base of information through an automatic valuation system. In areas with unique locations and houses that are difficult to compare the demands are higher on the content of the system to be correct and updated. In this way the automatic valuation system can be used in the housing market and fulfils a need in both types of areas as a complement to the ocular inspection.

Wilderness areas provide a wide array of quality nature experiences including primitive recreational opportunities in a primeval condition. However, a lot of these ecological and pristine sites suffer from disturbance and environmental degradation by the exhaustive human recreational use on campsites. Most of the impacts associated with camping gradually become a critical concern since they can be devastating to a wilderness environment and the affiliated experience. This study employed the contingent valuation method to determine peoples' willingness to pay for the preservation of the Panther Den Wilderness if campsites were restricted /limited, and to estimate an economic value of non-market goods and services affiliated to the preservation and use values of the Panther Den Wilderness. A Contingent valuation questionnaire was administered to gather information on the respondent's intentions and to determine what they would be willing to pay under a hypothetical scenario. Moon's WTP model estimated the willingness to pay relationship with a set of explanatory and socio-demographic variables including bid sizes, miles traveled, recreation times, campsite impacts observed, age, gender, and education. Results revealed that there was a clear relationship between the respondents' willingness to pay, the pre-determined bid-size/fee level, and the distance traveled to the Panther Den Wilderness, hence; the correlation between the variables was highly significant. The estimated mean willingness to pay value for the preservation of the Panther Den Wilderness was $9.56 per visitor. Overall, the estimated results and mean willingness to pay value served as the interpretation of an assessment which clearly revealed that outdoor recreation users were willing to pay a user fee for the preservation of the Panther Den Wilderness regardless of campsite limitations or restrictions.

Orientador: Ademar Ribeiro Romeiro / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-17T08:25:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Paiva_RobertaFernandadaPazdeSouza_D.pdf: 2183238 bytes, checksum: 37af2d628d609d9e269a0d90ac46c0d5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: O atendimento das demandas geradas pelo crescimento econômico e a ampliação das necessidades de consumo da população dão uma nova dinâmica ao contexto de exploração do meio ambiente. Maiores níveis de utilização dos recursos naturais e a convicção de que os recursos naturais são finitos (com o risco de perdas irreversíveis potencialmente catastróficas), difundida pelos economistas ecológicos, exigem a mudança dos paradigmas nos quais se baseia a gestão dos recursos naturais, até então apoiada principalmente em resultados de estudos que buscam realizar estimativas do valor econômico dos recursos naturais. Nesse contexto, a partir dos preceitos da economia ecológica, que inclui diferentes dimensões de valor que não a econômica e tem por objetivo a escala sustentável de utilização e a equidade na distribuição dos recursos naturais, além da eficiência alocativa, faz-se necessária a discussão de quão adequados são os estudos baseados na aplicação dos métodos convencionais de valoração para embasar a tomada de decisão. O presente trabalho teve como objetivo principal discutir sobre a capacidade dos métodos convencionais de valoração econômica ambiental (VEA) captarem o valor total dos ativos ambientais, a partir da apresentação dos conceitos da Economia Ecológica e dos valores que a mesma associa aos recursos naturais. Buscou-se mostrar, através da realização de estudos de casos (avaliação da poluição hídrica e atmosférica na cidade de Volta Redonda/RJ), um caminho para um protocolo de valoração econômico-ecológica, para que a mesma possa incluir questões imprescindíveis à gestão ambiental. Como principal conclusão tem-se que os estudos de valoração utilizados como base para os processos decisórios devem ser baseados em avaliações ecossistêmicas que forneçam informações sobre os serviços ecossistêmicos prestados pelo recurso avaliado e, a partir daí, possam ser selecionados métodos de valoração mais adequados (que podem ter seu fundamento nas preferências individuais, coletivas ou processos biofísicos) que possam captar as dimensões de valor (econômica, ecológica e sócio-cultural), seja através da base monetária ou não / Abstract: The attendance of the claims generated by the economic growth and the increasing of the population consumption needs give a new dynamic to the context of environment exploration. Higher levels of natural resources utilization and the conviction that natural resources are finite (with risk of potentially catastrophic irreversible losses) diffused by ecological economists, demand the change in the paradigms on which the question of the natural resources is based, until now mainly supported on results of studies that seek to carry out estimates of natural resources economic value. Within this context, from the ecological economy precepts, that includes different dimensions of value but the economic, and has as objective the sustainable utilization scale and the equity in the distribution of the natural resources, besides the allocative efficiency, one does the necessary discussion of how much suitable the studies based on the application of the conventional methods of valoration are to sustain the making of decision. The actual work had as the main objective to discuss about the capacity of the conventional methods of environmental economic valoration (VEA) to captivate the total value of the environmental assets, from the presentation of the concepts of the Ecological Economy, and of the values that it associates to the natural resources. One intended to show, by means of the realization of case studies (valuation of the water and atmospheric pollution in the city of Volta Redonda), a way to a protocol of economic-ecological valoration, so that it may include indispensable questions to the environmental questions. As the main conclusion one has that the studies of valoration utilized as the base to the decision process must be based on eco-systemic valuations that provide data about the eco-systemic services performed by the resource evaluated and, from this point, more suitable methods of valoration can be selected (that can have their background in the individual, collective preferences, or in the biophysical processes), that can captivate the (economic, ecological and socio-cultural) dimensions of value, whether by means of the monetary basis or not / Doutorado / Desenvolvimento Economico, Espaço e Meio Ambiente / Doutor em Desenvolvimento Economico

The graduation theses is focused on inspection and description of basic access to evaluation of real property in the Czech Republic, their analysis and comparison. The theoretical part is focused on the description of legislative adjustment for evaluation of real property, definition of basic terms and relations. It deals with role of international standards and their impact on national regulations. The attention is paid methodological rules of assessing property. The next part of study descibes basic approachs, methods and techniques for assessing real property for specific aims. It is intersted in market methods (on basis of comparison, yield and cost substitutions), evaluation in agreement with regulation of Ministry of Finance and assessing in insurance (approachs of the biggest insurer, brokerage firms and methods advises by specialists). The theoretical knowledges are in the following part apply to practical study of evaluation (the real estate is family house). It contains description of valuations. In the end of the graduation theses, the approachs are compared and analyzed factors, which influences the differences.