Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Recently, online group-buying has been a popular business model. It was observed that many characteristics of online group-buying are potential stimuli of impulse buying. Therefore, we target traditional online group-buying and e-coupon group-buying and try to explore the characteristics of online group-buying stimulating impulse buying. Based on the literature review and empirical data collection, we identified five characteristics of online group-buying which may stimulate impulse buying. They are group-buying discount, time pressure, social interaction, perceived shopping convenience and consumption deadline. The data were collected through online questionnaire. The analysis result shows that the five characteristics of online group-buying indeed cause impulse buying. Further, we also explored whether the impulse buying behavior will be moderated in different situations. These moderators include group-buying model (traditional online group-buying vs. e-coupon group-buying), transaction price level, relationship with the group-buying initiator, product type and group-buying experience. The result indicates that the impulse buying behaviors are easier to be stimulated in the following situations: traditional online group-buying, lower transaction price, familiar with the traditional online group-buying initiator, non-food product and more experienced consumers of online group-buying.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

作為行銷的主要推廣工具之一，優惠券可同時使商家和消費者獲益，可謂是一個雙贏的行銷手法。然而在實務上，優惠券的總體發放數量巨大，但整體兌換率卻極低，如何提昇優惠券的兌換率成為企業的重要課題。為了吸引消費者，市面上林林總總的優惠券層出不窮，例如「好友分享券」與「買一送一券」；使用效期的表述亦有多種方式，例如「僅限1月1日可使用」與「1月1日任何時間可使用」。本文由此思考，優惠券上這些看似可隨意混用的文字訊息，也許在不知不覺中影響著消費者的思維模式，並對消費者的優惠券評價、兌換意願及兌換行爲產生作用。 本文結合解釋水平理論與框架效應理論，意圖釐清看似相同的優惠券文字訊息對消費者思維模式解釋水平的影響（實驗一），接著探討思維模式解釋水平與效期框架之適配對優惠券吸引力與兌換意願（實驗二子實驗a、b）及兌換行為（實驗三）的影響，並試圖以處理流暢性解釋此影響過程的心理機制（實驗二子實驗a、b）。 研究主要有兩點發現：（一）「好友分享券」與「買一送一券」文字訊息在影響消費者思維模式解釋水平上具有顯著差異，「好友分享券」文字訊息影響消費者處於高水平解釋思維模式；「買一送一券」文字訊息影響消費者處於低水平解釋思維模式。（二）「好友分享券」（高水平解釋）與「僅限」（限制性效期框架）、「買一送一券」（低水平解釋）與「任何時間」（開闊性效期框架）分別存在適配效果，比不適配的思維模式解釋水平與效期框架更能提升優惠券吸引力及增加消費者兌換意願。最後，本研究探討研究發現的意涵，並對未來研究方向提出建議。 / As one of the major promotional tools for marketing, coupons can benefit both consumers and retailers. Therefore, coupon marketing is considered to be a so-called win-win marketing approach. However, in practice, despite the massive number of coupons distributed, overall redemption rates remain extremely low. The question of how to raise redemption rates has become an important issue for corporations. In order to attract consumers, various coupons keep emerging in the market, such as “share with friends” coupons and “buy one, get one free” coupons. Moreover, the same redemption window can be expressed in different ways, for example, “the coupon can be used only on January 1” and “the coupon can be used anytime on January 1”. This research is interested in whether the seemingly interchangeable coupon messages exert an influence without people's realizing it on consumers’ mind-sets, coupon attractiveness, redemption intention and behavior. By combining Construal Level Theory with Framing Effect, this research attempts to explore the impact of the seemingly equivalent coupon messages on the construal level of consumers’ mind-sets (Study 1), and examine the effect of the congruency between the construal level of mind-sets and redemption window frames on coupon attractiveness, redemption intention (Study 2a & 2b) and behavior (Study 3). In addition, this research tries to draw on processing fluency to explain the mechanism underlying the effect (Study 2a & 2b). The main findings are as follows. First, “share with friends” and “buy one, get one free” influence consumers to construe their mind-sets at a high and low level, respectively. Second, the congruency between “share with friends” coupon (high-level construal) and the restrictive frame “only”, “buy one, get one free” coupon (low-level construal) and the expansive frame “anytime”, enhances coupon attractiveness and consumers’ intention to redeem. The research concludes with the implications of the findings and suggestions for future research.

In direct marketing, understanding the response behavior of consumers to marketing initiatives is a pre-requisite for marketers before implementing targeting strategies to reach potential as well as existing consumers in the future. Consumer response can either be in terms of the incidence or timing of purchases, category/ brand choice of purchases made as well as the volume or purchase amounts in each category. Direct marketers seek to explore how past consumer response behavior as well as their targeting actions affects current response patterns. However, considerable heterogeneity is also prevalent in consumer responses and the possible sources of this heterogeneity need to be investigated. With the knowledge of consumer response and the corresponding heterogeneity, direct marketers can devise targeting strategies to attract potential new consumers as well as retain existing consumers. In the first essay of my dissertation (Chapter 2), I model the response behavior of donors in non-profit charity fund-raising in terms of their timing and volume of donations. I show that past donations (both the incidence and volume) and solicitation for alternative causes by non-profits matter in donor responses and the heterogeneity in donation behavior can be explained in terms of individual and community level donor characteristics. I also provide a heuristic approach to target new donors by using a classification scheme for donors in terms of the frequency and amount of donations and then characterize each donor portfolio with corresponding donor characteristics. In the second essay (Chapter 3), I propose a more structural approach in the targeting of customers by direct marketers in the context of customized retail couponing. First I model customer purchase in a retail setting where brand choice decisions in a product category depend on pricing, in-store promotions, coupon targeting as well as the face values of those coupons. Then using a utility function specification for the retailer which implements a trade-off between net revenue (revenue – coupon face value) and information gain, I propose a Bayesian decision theoretic approach to determine optimal customized coupon face values. The optimization algorithm is sequential where past as well as future customer responses affect targeted coupon face values and the direct marketer tries to determine the trade-off through natural experimentation. / text

In this paper, we discuss bond financing as an interesting source of debt finance for listed real estate companies in Sweden. Furthermore, we compare 10 bonds issued by Swedish real estate companies in 2013. These bonds are analysed from different perspectives and the pricing of each bond is discussed. In addition, this paper will describe the real estate companies’ business concepts and business activities in order to relate these concepts and activities to the size of the coupon rates the issuing real estate firms have to pay. The analysis discusses the pricing of the bonds from the following perspectives: • Company size • Number of issues • Average debt financing costs • Underlying assets • Covered vs. uncovered Our conclusion regarding the pricing of bonds in the real estate sector is that it is dependable on most of the variables above and the interaction between them. As an investor in the bond market, the main focus should be on the issuer’s payment capacity regarding the coupons as well as the principal. / I denna uppsats fördjupar vi oss inom ämnet obligationsfinansiering. Arbetet ska ge en djupare insyn i hur obligationsfinansiering går till samt ge kunskap om andra typer av skuldinstrument som används. Arbetet lägger stor tyngd vid analys och beskrivning av obligationsfinansiering på den svenska fastighetsmarknaden. I analysen jämförs 10 obligationer som emitterats av svenska fastighetsbolag under 2013. Dessa obligationer analyseras ur olika perspektiv och prissättningen på varje enskild obligation diskuteras. Dessutom ska uppsatsen ge en fördjupning av de ingående fastighetsbolagens verksamheter samt affärsidéer, med syfte att söka eventuella samband mellan bolagens verksamheter och storleken på kupongräntor som olika fastighetsbolag får betala. Följande aspekter har beaktats i analysen av hur prissättningen av obligationerna har gått till: • Bolagets storlek • Antal emissioner • Genomsnittliga finansieringskostnader • Bolagets tillgångar • Säkerställda jämfört med icke säkerställda obligationer. Uppsatsen studerar framförallt skillnaden mellan säkerställda och icke-säkerställda obligationer. Hur stor skillnad bör det vara i riskpremie vid investering i en obligation som saknar säkerhet jämfört med en säkerställd obligation från samma emittent? Vår slutsats kring prissättningen av obligationer i fastighetssektorn är att den är beroende av flertalet av faktorerna ovan och samspelet mellan dessa. Som investerare i obligationsmarknaden handlar det dock om att kunna förutse och analysera emittentens betalningsförmåga gällande kuponger (räntor) och återbetalning av obligationernas nominella belopp

Empirical evidence indicates that the volatility in asset prices is not constant, but varies over time. However, many simple models for asset pricing rest on an assumption of constancy. In this thesis we analyse the zero-coupon bond price under a two-factor Vasicek model, where both the short rate and its volatility follow Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. Yield curves based on the two-factor model are then compared to those obtained from the standard Vasicek model with constant volatility. The simulated yield curves from the two-factor model exhibit "humps" that can be observed in the market, but which cannot be obtained from the standard model. / Det finns empiriska bevis som indikerar att volatiliteten i finansiella marknader inte är konstant, utan varierar över tiden. Dock så utgår många enkla modeller för tillgångsprisättning från ett antagande om konstans. I det här examensarbetet analyserar vi priset på nollkupongobligationer under en stokastisk Vasicekmodell, där både den korta räntan och dess volatilitet följer Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processer. De räntekurvor som tas fram genom två-faktormodellen jämförs sedan med de kurvor som erhålls genom den enkla Vasicekmodellen med konstant volatilitet. De simulerade räntekurvorna från två-faktormodellen uppvisar "pucklar" som kan urskiljas i marknaden, men som inte kan erhållas genom standardmodellen.

As the world faces unprecedented environmental challenges, there is an urgent need for largescale investments in green infrastructure and technologies. If we are going to achieve carbon neutrality, significant investments are necessary, and therefore must the entire financial system unite and endorse sustainable investment activities in a market-oriented manner.   A green bond is a relatively new type of bond. It was first introduced in 2007 by the European Investment Bank (EIB). This was followed up by a collaboration between Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) and the World Bank, a group of Swedish investors, pension funds, and SRI-focused investors. They issued their first green bond in 2008 intending to attract more investors. However, this attempt to increase the interest did not work, green bonds were almost nonexistent until 2013. One explanation for the slow development of the green bond market was the financial crisis in 2008. Further, the reason for the low interest in green bonds during this period was that traditional investors deemed these risky and non-profitable.  Using a deductive approach, this thesis investigates how green bonds perform compared to conventional bonds and stocks from the issuing company. The authors sampled green and conventional bonds from 33 companies that matured from 2018 to 2023. The sample data set contains bonds from Asia, Europe, South America, North America, and Australia. The data was tested using multiple hypotheses.  This thesis sets out to answer the research question: How do green bonds perform compared to conventional bonds and stocks?   The results indicated there is a significant difference between the three asset types. First, the stocks yield higher returns and higher standard deviations than green and conventional bonds. Second, the authors found no evidence for a difference in return thus a significant difference in standard deviation. The results also suggest there is a difference in modified duration, convexity, maturity, and yield to maturity. These findings indicate that green bonds performed better than conventional bonds, especially regarding risk and volatility. Therefore, could green bonds be useful when diversifying a portfolio.  The findings suggested that a portfolio composition that combines the three assets could be in line with both shareholder theory and stakeholder theory. The portfolio theory also provides interesting insights into the potential portfolio optimizations since there are differences between green and conventional bonds. Since no difference in the return was found for green and conventional bonds the authors find no reason to support the idea of herding behavior in the trading of green bonds.  However, the difference in standard deviation is interesting from a behavioral perspective, a lower standard deviation indicates that the green bond experiences lower volatility compared to conventional bonds.

In this dissertation, we consider the Hull-White term structure problem with the boundary value condition given as the payoff of a European bond option. We restrict ourselves to the case where the parameters of the Hull-White model are strictly positive constants and from the risk neutral valuation formula, we first derive simple closed–form expression for pricing European bond option in the Hull-White extended Vasicek model framework. As the European option can be exercised only on the maturity date, we then examine the case of early exercise opportunity commonly called American option. With the analytic representation of American bond option being very hard to handle, we are forced to resort to numerical experiments. To do it excellently, we transform the Hull-White term structure equation into the diffusion equation and we first solve it through implicit, explicit and Crank-Nicolson (CN) difference methods. As these standard finite difference methods (FDMs) require truncation of the domain from infinite to finite one, which may deteriorate the computational efficiency for American bond option, we try to build a CN method over an unbounded domain. We introduce an exact artificial boundary condition in the pricing boundary value problem to reduce the original to an initial boundary problem. Then, the CN method is used to solve the reduced problem. We compare our performance with standard FDMs and the results through illustration show that our method is more efficient and accurate than standard FDMs when we price American bond option. / Mathematical Sciences / (M.Sc. (Mathematics))

In this dissertation, we consider the Hull-White term structure problem with the boundary value condition given as the payoff of a European bond option. We restrict ourselves to the case where the parameters of the Hull-White model are strictly positive constants and from the risk neutral valuation formula, we first derive simple closed–form expression for pricing European bond option in the Hull-White extended Vasicek model framework. As the European option can be exercised only on the maturity date, we then examine the case of early exercise opportunity commonly called American option. With the analytic representation of American bond option being very hard to handle, we are forced to resort to numerical experiments. To do it excellently, we transform the Hull-White term structure equation into the diffusion equation and we first solve it through implicit, explicit and Crank-Nicolson (CN) difference methods. As these standard finite difference methods (FDMs) require truncation of the domain from infinite to finite one, which may deteriorate the computational efficiency for American bond option, we try to build a CN method over an unbounded domain. We introduce an exact artificial boundary condition in the pricing boundary value problem to reduce the original to an initial boundary problem. Then, the CN method is used to solve the reduced problem. We compare our performance with standard FDMs and the results through illustration show that our method is more efficient and accurate than standard FDMs when we price American bond option. / Mathematical Sciences / (M.Sc. (Mathematics))