過去文獻指出，當企業之資訊透明度越高時，追隨企業的財務分析師越多，盈餘的預測偏誤、預測離散度越小；另外，當企業資訊透明度較高時，其管理階層也會因為外部人的監督而減少過度投資與投資不足等逆選擇的發生機會。故本研究欲探討分析師對於企業投資總額之關聯性，並且進一步探討分析師與企業過度投資及投資不足之關聯性。以2010年到2013年之台灣上市櫃公司做為樣本。實證結果發現，分析師是否追隨與企業投資總額沒有顯著之關聯性，而過度投資之公司其投資總額與分析師之預測錯誤率與離散度呈現正相關。

The general focus of my dissertation, which consists of two essays, is on how changes in the financial and economic environment surrounding a firm affect managerial incentives and firm policies regarding investment in physical capital, innovation, equity offerings, and repurchases. The first essay in my dissertation examines how product market competition affects firms' investment decisions. While competition among firms benefits consumers via lower prices, greater product variety, higher product quality, and greater innovation, recent studies provide evidence that competition has been declining in the U.S. economy over the past decade. The evidence shows that American firms' profits are at near-record levels relative to GDP and are persistent. Industries have become more concentrated as a result of mergers and acquisitions, and barriers to entry have risen and the rate of new entry has been declining for decades. Taking these findings at face value, we examine empirically whether companies feel less compelled to invest in physical capital and in research and development because they face fewer threats from rival firms. Using both traditional proxies and recently developed text-based measures of industry concentration, we show that firms operating in competitive industries invest significantly more in both physical capital and research and development relative to their peers in concentrated industries. We also report that the propensity to invest less by managers of monopolistic firms is partially mitigated by superior corporate governance that reduces the agency problem, and by certain product market characteristics such as low pricing power and low product differentiation/entry barriers. However, after accounting for all these mitigating factors, the negative association between industry concentration and investment persists. Our results are robust to including various control variables and exclusion of firms from industries that face significant competition from imports. The results are also robust to controlling for endogeneity caused by missing time-invariant and time-varying industry level factors that could potentially be related to both the level of concentration and investments. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that firms in competitive industries have a greater incentive to invest and innovate to survive and thrive in a competitive environment relative to the managers of the firms in more concentrated industries whose incentive to invest and innovate is to maintain their monopoly rents. Our findings have obvious policy implications in that investment and hence economic growth is being adversely affected in the current era of increasing industry concentration and declining competition. The second essay in my dissertation investigates whether information contained in equity issues and buybacks is fully incorporated into prices such that the market reaction to subsequent earnings announcements is unrelated to those corporate actions. Korajczyk at al. (1991) argue that firms prefer to issue equity when the market is most informed about the quality of the firm to prevent adverse selection costs associated with new equity issues. This implies that equity issues tend to follow credible information releases contained in earnings announcements. However, analyzing a sample of 19,466 SEO pricing dates between 1970 and 2015 and 15,106 buyback announcements between 1994 and 2015 shows that a considerable number of equity offerings and repurchase announcements take place before the announcement of earnings. About 28% of buybacks and 32% of SEO pricings are made in the three weeks prior to an earnings announcement. Given these statistics, we examine whether these corporate actions provide information about upcoming earnings announcements (earnings predictability) to the extent that new information has not been fully incorporated into prices by market participants. We find evidence of earnings predictability: the market reaction to earnings following buyback announcements is higher by 5.1% than the reaction to earnings following equity issues over the (-1,+30) window when four-factor abnormal returns are used; the difference is 2.2% when unadjusted returns are considered. The results are robust to several alternate sample construction methodologies. There are at least two puzzling effects of earnings predictability that are difficult to reconcile with the market efficiency hypothesis. First, there is an incomplete adjustment to SEO pricings and buyback announcements that results in residual market reaction to earnings announcements. Second, prices continue to drift after earnings announcements: upward for buybacks and downward for SEO pricings. Unlike post-earnings announcement drift, the drift documented here does not depend on the market reaction to earnings announcement. We test several reasons for this anomalous behavior including prior returns, price, size of buyback or SEO, analyst forecast errors, and bid-ask spread. We find that information asymmetry proxies partially explain the persistence of earnings predictability following SEO pricings and buyback announcements. / Ph. D. / It is well documented that corporate investments in research and development (R&D) and physical capital are important drivers of economic growth and higher standards of living. Recent articles published by academic community and popular press have provided evidence that the overall competition among U.S. firms has declined. The evidence shows that concentration has increased in 75% of the US industries, the economy has lost about 50% of its publicly traded firms, and the rate of new-business formation has fallen. Given the documented association between corporate investments and economic growth & social welfare, a natural question arising would be whether declining competition is detrimental to investment in both physical capital and R&D. The first chapter of my dissertation aims to answer this question by examining whether companies feel less compelled to invest in physical capital and in R&D because they face fewer threats from rival firms. Our findings show that firms operating in concentrated industries invest significantly less in both physical capital and research and development relative to their peers in competitive industries, consistent with the notion that firms in competitive industries have a greater incentive to invest and innovate to survive and thrive in a competitive environment relative to the managers of the firms in more concentrated industries whose incentive to invest and innovate is to maintain their monopoly rents. Our findings have obvious policy implications in that investment and hence economic growth is being adversely affected in the current era of increasing industry concentration and declining competition. The wealth of the shareholders of publicly traded firms is tied to managers’ decisions about corporate actions such as equity offerings, buybacks, dividends, and mergers as these actions can potentially affect the stock prices and the value of shareholders’ portfolios. The second part of my dissertation investigates whether buybacks or equity offerings announced within a few weeks prior to earnings provide information about upcoming earnings announcements to the extent that new information has not been fully incorporated into prices by market participants. We find that earnings coming after equity offerings are likely to contain bad news and earnings coming after buybacks are likely to contain good news. This implies that buying the shares of the companies that announce a buyback before their earnings and short selling the shares of the companies that issue equity before their earnings will yield a significant return for the investors.

建立適當的資本投資決策，對於企業未來的發展具有深遠的影響。如何能擬定出適合的資本預算計畫，以增加公司的成長機會與競爭能力，便是當前重要的課題。本論文以三個階段探討企業投資歷程中所具有的實質選擇權評價：包括對於計畫案擬定之初期，進行投資機會價值評估的實質成長選擇權。以及針對投資計畫開始進行時，管理者所擁有的各種管理彈性，如遞延、擴張、縮減與暫停投資的決策彈性，進行多重實質選擇權的價值評估。最後，針對未能順利成功的計畫案，管理者擁有將其永遠放棄，以收回投資成本殘值的實質放棄選擇權價值進行評估。 　　對於第一階段的成長選擇權價值評估，本文已建立出同時考量標的資產與投資成本隨機變動，以及標的資產存在不連續跳躍特性下的選擇權評價封閉解，結果可用來評估計畫方案擬定初期的實質成長選擇權價值。若將評價模式中的參數進行限制，則本模型將會分別退化至Black and Scholes(1973), Merton(1976), Fischer(1978), Margrabe(1978), McDonald and Siegel(1985)等重要的選擇權評價文獻，可知本文已獲致較一般化的評價模型。 　　在第二階段的多重實質選擇權價值評估，本文採用Trigeorgis(1991)所建立的對數轉換二項評價模式，再加入跳躍模型的考量，以符合科技產業所具有的創新、競爭特性，期較能合理評估其價值，也獲得了較一般化的評價模式。再者，本文以模擬方式對於管理者在投資計畫的進行過程中所擁有的遞延、擴張、縮減以及暫停投資等彈性決策價值進行評估，以彰顯出利用實質選擇權評價方法進行彈性決策價值評估的必要性。由數值分析的結果得到，當多個實質選擇權同時存在時，其間將產生不同程度的交互作用，因此並不能直接將個別價值予以加總來求算整體的實質選擇權價值。不過，每項管理彈性的加入對於整體價值的增加皆具有正向貢獻。 　　對於第三階段的放棄選擇權價值評估，本文建立同時存在多項投資方案下的實質放棄選擇權評價模型，結果可用來評估研發計畫方案未能成功時的實質放棄選擇權價值。此外，本文進一步對於此評價模型進行數值分析，並將所得到的結果歸納如下：(1)方案間價值變動相關係數對於實質放棄選擇權價值的影響上，有相關係數越高時，實質放棄選擇權的價值就越高的現象。(2)殘值回收比率較高時，若採取較多的投資計畫方案，將可以獲致較高的實質放棄選擇權價值，此結果可作偽管理者在選擇備抵方案數目時的參考。(3)對於敏威性分析的探討，發現到當殘值增加、利率下降以及剩餘期間較長時，實質放棄選擇權的價值是增加的，此現象與賣權特性結果一致。 　　因此，本文針對企業投資歷程中所具有的實質選擇權評價進行深入探討，分別建立選擇權評價模型，也獲致了較以往模型更一般化的評價結果。並於各評價模型建構完成後，輔以數值模擬與敏感性分析，以進一步說明本文所建構模型之一般性與合理性。最後，希望此結果有助於日後企業對於投資價值評估時之參考，並可彌補此類研究文獻的不足。 / This dissertation presents three essays, each provides a general real option pricing model. In the first essay, we derive a generalized option pricing formula for the case of the underlying asset and exercise price both being driven by a mixture of continuous and jump diffusion processes. Our pricing model is a generalized version of Black and Scholes(1973), Merton(1976), Fischer(1978), Margrabe(1978), and McDonald-Siegel(l 985). And each of the historical model is shown to be a special case of ours. We then use the model developed in this article to evaluate real growth options where the underlying assets follow jump diffusion processes. The second essay develops a multi-option pricing model incorporating jump characteristics. The model we provide here can be used to value various types of flexibilities, including the option to defer, the option to shut down, the option to contract, and the option to expand. Based on our numerical results, we find that the model can deal with the interactions among these options. The third essay considers an abandonment option on the maximizing value of several investment projects. Here we develop a model to evaluate R&D projects that may not be accomplished. We show that both Black-Scholes's model and Stuiz's model are special cases of ours under certain restrictions on parameters. From the simulation results, we find a positive relation between the correlation of project value changes and the value of the real abandonment options. Furthermore, our simulation results show that the higher the percentage of recovering salvage value, the more number of investment projects should be carried out. The result we find can help managers to choose the better backup projects. Our sensitivity analysis shows that the value of the real abandonment options increase when the riskless interest rate decreases, and at the same time the salvage value and the time to maturity increase.

Digitalization is an important aspect for future growth of all organizations, and especially in times like the past year where most of the world has been faced with covid-restrictions and lockdown. Dermarome is a leading skincare and beauty distributor and are currently in the process of launching a new B2B website and web-shop. The aim of this research is to provide an answer to the following interrelated research questions:   1. How do the management of Dermarome decide on their investments in the business- to- business IT infrastructure?    2. How will the launch of the business- to- business website affect the purchasing behaviour of the business- to- business customers?    To answer these research questions a qualitative study has been made and the top management at Dermarome has been interviewed for this purpose. 5 interviewees were selected based on their knowledge and experience. All interviews that participated in this research were anonymous.    The result of this thesis is divided up into two parts, firstly, it describes how Dermarome has used the Payback rule and SWOT in order to make a decision regarding the investment in the B2B website. Secondly, it describes how Dermarome believes the saloon and spa customers purchasing behaviour will change due to this website, as it will lead to an increase in Dermarome’s sales.