Thesis advisor: Jeffrey Pontiff / The first essay of this dissertation studies the effect of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) on the yields and liquidity of the underlying corporate bonds. I find that ETFs lower the yield, have an insignificant or negative impact on the liquidity, and decrease the retail volume of constituent bonds. Overall, these results support theoretical predications that basket securities entice liquidity traders to exit the underlying market. The second essay analyzes the role of ETFs in mutual fund families and is joint work with Harold Spilker. We study mutual fund and ETF twins - index funds from the same family that follow the same benchmark. Mutual fund twins are shown to have lower tax burdens, long-term capital gains yields, and unrealized capital gains. Conversely, ETF twins have higher long-term yields and unrealized capital gains, but are compensated with lower expense ratios. Fund families benefit because twin offerings generate higher flows than their non-twin peers. These results support previous research that mutual fund families use diversification and subsidization to benefit the overall family. The third essay provides academics with a detailed understanding of the history, structure, regulation, and prospects of ETFs. The essay documents that the growth of index investing can largely be attributed to ETFs. The information and nuances discussed provide a baseline for developing future research questions and data. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

Over the past decade, numerous engineered credit events and cases of market participants manipulating bond prices to influence Credit Default Swap (CDS) auction payouts have occurred. These cases have become increasingly common, and the CFTC has stated they may constitute market manipulation and undermine not only the CDS market but also the credit derivative and default markets. Although there is a plethora of news and media coverage on publicized cases, there is no previous empirical research on evidence of these practices. This paper is motivated by the desire to determine if there is indirect evidence of bond price manipulation around default and of market participants’ attempts to favorably move CDS’s underlying bond prices to achieve more profitable positions around default and emerging from CDS auctions. The analysis is performed by analyzing the effect of a bonds’ inclusion in CDS auctions on bond return volatility around the time of default while controlling for credit risk, illiquidity, firm fundamentals, and other bond-level controls. I find that bond return volatility around default is much higher as a result of a bond’s inclusion in a CDS auction, which serves as indirect evidence of bond price manipulation around default as market participants strive for more profitable CDS auction outcomes and possibly of manufactured credit events. Consistent with previous literature, I also find that bond illiquidity significantly impacts bond return volatility. My results are robust to propensity score matching, implementing double-robust estimators, and controlling for any time-varying cross-sectionally-invariant fluctuations in bond return volatility.

The thesis builds a model for pricing the liabilities of a firm. The liabilities - stocks, loans, bonds - fundamentally all depend on the value of the firm's assets. By looking at balance sheet data, such as the nominal amount of debt outstanding, and market prices, such as time series of stock prices, the value and volatility of the assets can be estimated. Finally, e.g. bank loans to the same firm can be priced in terms of these values. Thus, the purpose of the whole exercise is to use the information content in stock prices to infer the value of loans. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

The long-term external financing of a corporation is satisfied through the bond market where issues of index-linked bonds, which are discussed in this thesis, is one alternative. (Finnerty&Emery 2001) An index- linked bond is a debt instrument where the investor is guaranteed the principal and premium amount in real terms. As the bonds cash flows are indexed to the inflation this implies that the issuer of an index-linked bond assumes an inflation risk. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and examine corporate motives for choosing index-linked bonds as way of financing their business. Realization: Primary data was collected through interviews with corporate issuers of non-swapped index-linked bonds. Results: From our research it has been acknowledged that both internal and external factors determine the decision to issue index-linked bonds. The most important internal reason for the issuance was that this type of financing implies matching advantages, which helps lowering the companies’ risks. This is achieved by balancing the size and time of the cash inflows with the cash out- flows. Of the external factors we found that it is primary the financing cost that is of interest. The cost savings are primarily achieved because of the lower liquidity premium demanded when using index-linked bonds as a way of financing the business. We believe that this depends partly on the character of the investors and on market imperfections.

<p>The long-term external financing of a corporation is satisfied through the bond market where issues of index-linked bonds, which are discussed in this thesis, is one alternative. (Finnerty&Emery 2001) An index- linked bond is a debt instrument where the investor is guaranteed the principal and premium amount in real terms. As the bonds cash flows are indexed to the inflation this implies that the issuer of an index-linked bond assumes an inflation risk. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to describe and examine corporate motives for choosing index-linked bonds as way of financing their business. Realization: Primary data was collected through interviews with corporate issuers of non-swapped index-linked bonds. Results: From our research it has been acknowledged that both internal and external factors determine the decision to issue index-linked bonds. The most important internal reason for the issuance was that this type of financing implies matching advantages, which helps lowering the companies’ risks. This is achieved by balancing the size and time of the cash inflows with the cash out- flows. Of the external factors we found that it is primary the financing cost that is of interest. The cost savings are primarily achieved because of the lower liquidity premium demanded when using index-linked bonds as a way of financing the business. We believe that this depends partly on the character of the investors and on market imperfections.</p>

Bakgrund: De svenska företagens lånebaserade finansiering har historiskt sett mestadels utgjorts av banklån framför företagsobligationer. Efter finanskrisens start 2008, och fram till och med fjärde kvartalet år 2012, har den svenska företagsobligationsmarknaden vuxit med drygt 60 procent. I media framställs en bild där regelverket Basel III har gjort och kommer göra företagsobligationsmarknaden till en viktigare finansieringskälla för svenska företag. En studie om företagsobligationsmarknaden efterfrågas av Svenskt Näringsliv. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att kartlägga och utifrån institutionell teori analysera hur de ekonomiska förutsättningarna för den svenska företagsobligationsmarknaden har förändrats sedan år 2008. Genomförande: För att uppnå studiens syfte har ett kvalitativt tillvägagångssätt tillämpats. Empirin har samlats in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med aktörer på företagsobligationsmarknaden. En intervjuguide utformades med grund i institutionell ekonomisk teori, med fokus på transaktionskostnader. Samma teoretiska referensram har sedan använts för att analysera den insamlade empirin. Slutsats: Tiden innan år 2008 kännetecknades av att företagen valde banklån. Detta för att bankerna kunde hantera banklån till låga transaktionskostnader. Institutionella förändringar sedan år 2008 har lett till att transaktionskostnaderna sänkts på företagsobligationsmarknaden. Företagsobligationer har således blivit ett bättre alternativ för många företag, även fast små företag fortfarande är utestängda från marknaden. / Background: Swedish corporates’ debt financing have historically mostly consisted of bank loans instead of corporate bonds. Since the beginning of the financial crisis of 2008, leading up to the fourth quarter of 2012, the Swedish corporate bond market has grown by over 60 per cent. Media coverage of the market presents a picture where the corporate bond market has become an important source of financing as a result of the legal framework Basel III. A study of the corporate bond market has been requested by the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. Aim: The purpose of the study is to identify and, by the use of institutional theory, analyse how the market conditions in the Swedish corporate bond market have changed since the year of 2008. Completion: To achieve the purpose of the study a qualitative research method has been applied. Empirical data have been collected through semi-structured interviews with stakeholders in the Swedish corporate bond market. An interview guide was designed from an institutional theory perspective with a focus on transaction costs. The same theoretical framework has been used to analyze the empirical data. Conclusion: Before the year of 2008, debt financing was characterised by bank loans. This was the result of the banks’ ability to keep transaction costs low. Since the year of 2008, institutional changes have decreased transaction costs on the Swedish corporate bond market. Corporate bonds have become a more attractive alternative for many companies, even though small companies are still excluded from the market.

This thesis contains three empirical studies on the US corporate bond market; each chapter is self-contained and can be read independently. Chapter 1 studies the impact of credit rating changes on corporate bond returns. This study uses a large dataset of corporate bond transactions from the TRACE database for the US corporate bond market, combined with credit rating changes from Fitch, Moody's and Standard and Poor's (S&amp;P), to analyse over 22,000 bonds, coupled with approximately 28,400 rating events over nearly six years. The results show that the bond market responds to news on credit quality asymmetrically: credit rating downgrades, representing bad news for bond holders, produce the strongest response in returns, whilst upgrades do not generate a statistically significant increase in returns. Chapter 2 analyses how order flow (investor "buy" and "sell" trades), impacts corporate bond prices. Order flow plays an important informational role, acting as a conduit through which private information about fundamental value is aggregated into prices. Using intraday transaction data from the TRACE database, I analyse over 1,000 of the most liquid corporate bonds, a total of 9.5 million trades. Drawing on similar studies of other markets, the relationship between returns and order flow is modelled using a vector autoregression, and the information content of a trade is measured as the long-run price impact of a shock to order flow. Price impacts are particularly strong and significant for order flow from institutional investors and for bonds with higher default risk, higher volatility and lower liquidity. Chapter 3 provides novel evidence on the importance of high frequency measures of volatility and correlation for the corporate bond market. Realized measures of volatility have been shown to be important in modelling and forecasting equity, exchange rate, and Treasury bill return volatility. We merge the NYSE's TAQ database of high frequency equity prices with the TRACE database, and show that the information contained in high frequency data is valuable in modelling the dynamics of the firm-level covariance matrix of bond and stock returns, for over 100 individual U.S. firms.

L'objectif de cette thèse est de contribuer à améliorer le calcul de la valorisation des obligations d'entreprise, notamment en essayant de tirer des leçons de la récente crise économique et financière. Afin d'atteindre cet objectif, nous proposons une approche basée sur les spreads de crédit. Nous commençons, dans un premier chapitre, par une analyse des principaux modèles de valorisation existants, que nous reformulons du point de vue des spreads et que nous simulons numériquement. Nous montrons que, malgré les caractéristiques attrayantes des modèles de type structurel, ceux ci comportent plusieurs lacunes qui peuvent être trompeuses surtout en contexte de crise. Dans les deuxième et troisième chapitres, nous mettons l'accent sur les spreads empiriques, que nous analysons pendant les crises des subprimes et de la zone euro. Par l'intermédiaire : (i) d'une analyse descriptive, (ii) d'analyses en composantes principales, ainsi que (iii) d'analyses par régressions statistiques, nous parvenons à mettre la lumière sur plusieurs facteurs qui affectent les mouvements des spreads et qui ne sont pas pris en compte par les modèles existants. Parmi ces facteurs, nous montrons : (i) que la vague de sauvetage des banques pendant la crise a eu un effet considérable sur les spreads de crédit, et (ii) que la taille d'une firme a également un effet sur ses spreads. Sur la base de ces résultats empiriques, nous proposons dans un quatrième chapitre une contribution à la modélisation structurelle des obligations d'entreprise, qui prend en compte la possibilité des firmes de négocier un sauvetage en cas de détresse. À l'aide de ce modèle, nous parvenons, d'une part, à reproduire les observations empiriques de spreads plus faibles pour des probabilités de sauvetage plus élevées (comme c'est le cas pour les grandes banques), et d'autre part, à combler plusieurs lacunes des modèles existants, tels que les simples mécanismes de faillite, ou les faibles spreads de crédit pour les courtes maturités. / The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the improvement of the valuation of corporate bonds, particularly by drawing some lessons from the recent economic and financial crisis. In order to achieve this goal, we propose an approach based on corporate bonds' credit spreads. We start, in the first chapter, by analyzing the main existing valuation models, which we reformulate from the standpoint of credit spreads and which we simulate numerically. We show that, despite the attractive features that the structural models have, the latter exert contain several shortcomings which may be misleading especially in a crisis context. In the second and third chapters, we focus on the empirical credit spreads, which we analyze during the subprime crisis and the Eurozone crisis periods. By the means of : (i) a descriptive analysis, (ii) principal component analyses, and(iii) statistical regression analyses, we manage to shed light on a number of factors which affect the movements of the spreads and have not been addressed by the existing models. Among these factors, we show that : (i) the wave of bailouts that occurred during the crisis has had an important effect on the spreads, and (ii) the size of a firm is connected with its spreads. Based on these empirical results, we propose in the fourth chapter a contribution to the modeling of corporate bonds which accounts for the possibility of firms to negotiate a rescue plan in case of distress. This model allows us, on the one hand, to reproduce the empirical observations of lower credit spreads for higher probabilities of receiving a bailout (as it is the case for large banks), and on the other hand, to tackle several drawbacks of the existing models, such as the simple bankruptcy mechanisms or the low credit spreads for short maturities.

Submitted by Osmar Gesualdo (osmargneto@gmail.com) on 2016-01-11T15:51:40Z No. of bitstreams: 1 20160111 financas-gesualdo-dissertação FGV.pdf: 1222688 bytes, checksum: a638bdc7ca273e1e871671d1fb7004cc (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Luiza Holme (ana.holme@fgv.br) on 2016-01-11T16:01:30Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 20160111 financas-gesualdo-dissertação FGV.pdf: 1222688 bytes, checksum: a638bdc7ca273e1e871671d1fb7004cc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-01-11T16:06:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 20160111 financas-gesualdo-dissertação FGV.pdf: 1222688 bytes, checksum: a638bdc7ca273e1e871671d1fb7004cc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-10 / The aim of this thesis is to investigate the Brazilian corporate bonds’ secondary market, to answer what features of the bonds affect its liquidity and the liquidity characteristics which can be observed in Brazilian corporate bonds. Five liquidity measures were used: number of days that occurred transactions, number of transactions, transactions volume compared to the amount issued, price spread traded daily and yield volatility. For each measure of liquidity, the influence of eight characteristics of the Brazilian corporate bonds was found: rating issued volume, maturity, issuer sector, listed on the stock exchange, issued age and issue type (encouraged and under instruction restricted efforts). There are collected 998 public debentures and their respective transactions up to 18 months after issue, from January 2007 to August 2015. The database, which totaled 53,085 observations, was based on market prices supplied daily by the Brazilian National Debentures System. As a result, it was found that issue volume, issue type (encouraged or restricted) and certain segments are liquidity variables. Additionally, it was found that, by controlling the segments of issuing, bonds with the highest volume are given more liquidity. Moreover, the relationship between age and liquidity is not clear and price spread traded daily is not an adequate liquidity measure. Finally, it was found that the high concentration of securities issued under restricted efforts reduced market liquidity compared to the study of Sheng and Saito (2008), despite the increase in the issued volume in the period. By contrast, the issuance of bonds encouraged raised the level of transactions in the secondary market. / O objetivo desta dissertação é investigar o mercado secundário de debêntures do Brasil, para responder quais as características dos títulos afetam sua liquidez e quais as características de liquidez podem ser observadas nas debêntures brasileiras. Cinco medidas de liquidez foram utilizadas: número de dias que ocorreram transações, número de transações, volume relativo de transações em relação ao montante emitido, diferença entre os preços máximos e mínimos transacionados e a volatilidade do rendimento. Para cada medida de liquidez, verificou-se a influência de oito características das debêntures: rating, volume emitido, prazo de vencimento, segmento do emissor, listagem em bolsa, idade da emissão e tipo de emissão (incentivada e sob instrução de esforços restritos). Foram coletadas 998 emissões públicas de debêntures e suas respectivas transações até 18 meses após a emissão, no período de janeiro de 2007 a agosto de 2015. A base de dados, que somou 53.085 observações, fundamentou-se nas cotações de mercado fornecidas diariamente pelo Sistema Nacional de Debêntures. Como resultado, verificou-se que o volume da emissão, tipo de emissão (incentivada ou restrita) e determinados segmentos são variáveis de liquidez. Adicionalmente constatou-se que, controlando os segmentos dos emissores, debêntures com maior volume emitido são mais líquidas. E mais, a relação entre idade e liquidez não é clara e a diferença entre preços máximos e mínimos das transações não é uma medida de liquidez apropriada. Por fim, verificou-se que a grande concentração de títulos emitidos sob esforços restritos reduziu a liquidez do mercado em comparação com o estudo de Sheng e Saito (2008), apesar do aumento do volume emitido no período. Em contrapartida, a emissão de títulos incentivados elevou o nível de transações no mercado secundário.

Submitted by Lucas Bubman Dyskant (lucasbubman@hotmail.com) on 2017-11-28T15:33:56Z No. of bitstreams: 2 EPGE - Final.pdf: 765762 bytes, checksum: 516f76f53430680a81d511305bdde1be (MD5) EPGE - Final.pdf: 765762 bytes, checksum: 516f76f53430680a81d511305bdde1be (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by GILSON ROCHA MIRANDA (gilson.miranda@fgv.br) on 2017-12-07T19:31:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 EPGE - Final.pdf: 765762 bytes, checksum: 516f76f53430680a81d511305bdde1be (MD5) EPGE - Final.pdf: 765762 bytes, checksum: 516f76f53430680a81d511305bdde1be (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-08T17:08:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 EPGE - Final.pdf: 765762 bytes, checksum: 516f76f53430680a81d511305bdde1be (MD5) EPGE - Final.pdf: 765762 bytes, checksum: 516f76f53430680a81d511305bdde1be (MD5) / We find that illiquidity remains a major factor in explaining corporate spreads. Illiquidity is second only to the credit risk itself. This effect is surprising given that the corporate debt trading activity has more than doubled in the US since the financial crisis of 2008. Longer bonds are substantially more illiquid than shorter bonds as one additional year in time to mature dries liquidity by 16%. We regress monthly cross-sectional corporate yield spreads on our return-based illiquidity measure, controlling for other variables such as the CDS spread and volatility. We find that a one standard deviation increase in illiquidity widens spreads by 26 basis points. / Nós encontramos que a iliquidez remanesce um importante fator explicativo em spreads de títulos corporativos. A iliquidez é menos importante somente do que o próprio risco de crédito. Este efeito é surpreendente dado que o volume de negociação de dívida privada mais do que dobrou nos EUA desde a crise financeira de 2008. Títulos longos são substancialmente mais ilíquidos do que títulos mais curtos, uma vez que um ano adicional na maturidade seca a liquidez em 16%. Nós regredimos cross-sections mensais de spreads de taxas privadas em nossa medida de iliquidez baseada em retornos, controlando por outro fatores como o CDS e a volatilidade. Nós encontramos que um aumento de um desvio padrão na iliquidez aumenta os spreads em 26 pontos-base.