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The objective of this thesis is to analyse the relationship between international taxation and developing countries. The main idea is to examine this relationship through arguments that challenge the current legal debate that has described their interest as capital importers of foreign direct investment. Globalisation has changed the economic relations between developed and developing countries. The evolution of the economic aspects as well as tax policies implemented during the process of globalisation provides the background necessary to understand the increased importance of international taxation and the participation of developing countries in the global economy. The hypothesis tested here addresses the question whether the dichotomy between developing and developed countries and their characterisation as capital importers and capital exporters still provides an appropriate basis for the legal debate on international taxation in the context of globalisation. To approach this question, the behaviour of international flow of capital will be assessed in order to provide an overview of the economic relations among these countries. To perform this study, initially the meaning of globalisation and international taxation are explained in order to build up the framework of this thesis; secondly, the current debate on harmful tax competition is examined to put in evidence the problem addressed in this thesis; thirdly, an analysis of the international flow of capital is performed to identify new premises that could update the legal debate; fourthly, based on the profile of the international flow of capital, the phenomenon of capital flight is addressed. Fifthly, having in mind the difficulty in taxing capital flight, taxation of portfolio investment is examined. Based on the arguments raised, the legal debate is updated demonstrating the higher importance of double taxation over tax avoidance and evasion in the recent past. Finally, considering the increased relevance of international tax avoidance and evasion, instruments available for exchange of information are analysed, and their effectiveness to curb capital flight from developing countries.

This thesis contains three essays on delegated portfolio management and deals with issues such as impact of regulations on mutual fund performance, impact of competition on transparency in financial markets and strategic trading behaviour of agents in illiquid markets. Chapter 1 analyses the impact of more frequent portfolio disclosure on mutual funds performance. Since 2004, SEC requires all U.S. mutual funds to disclose their portfolio holdings on a quarterly basis from semi-annual previously. This change in regulation provides a natural setting to study the impact of disclosure frequency on the performance of mutual funds. Prior to the policy change, it finds that the semi-annual funds with high abnormal returns in the past year outperform the corresponding quarterly funds by 17-20 basis points a month. This difference in performance disappears after 2004. The reduction in performance is higher for semi-annual funds holding illiquid assets than those holding liquid assets. These results support the hypothesis that performance of funds with more disclosure suffers more from activities such as front running. Chapter 2 analyses the impact of competition in financial markets on incentives to re- veal information. It finds that discretionary portfolio disclosure and advertising expenses of mutual funds decrease with competition. This supports the theory that mutual funds use portfolio disclosure and advertising as marketing tools to attract new investments in a financial market, where superior relative performance and greater visibility are rewarded with convex payoffs. With higher competition, the likelihood of landing new investments goes down for each fund while the cost of disclosure goes up. Funds respond by cutting down on costly disclosures and advertising activities. Thus competition seems to have adverse impact on market transparency and search cost. 3Chapter 3 develops a model of strategic trading to study forced liquidation. Traders who hold an illiquid risky security have to satisfy minimum capital requirements, or liquidate their position. Therefore, traders with price impact can induce the fire sale of others to benefit from future low prices. It shows that if traders have similar proportions of wealth invested in the risky security, or the market is sufficiently liquid, they behave cooperatively and smooth their orders over several trading periods. However, if the proportions are significantly different across agents, and market liquidity is low, the strong agent, who is less exposed to the risky asset, predates on the weak agent, and forces her to exit the market.

The aim of the thesis is to examine the leverage and debt maturity levels and the determinants of capital structure and debt maturity of firms in developing countries. We use World Bank Enterprise Survey data covering 10,839 firms in 24 countries located in five regions. The survey provides information about balance sheet and income statements items allowing us to examine whether capital structure theory is portable to small firms in developing countries. We find that the leverage and debt maturity levels of small and large firms are different. Leverage and debt maturities are lower for small firms despite their high asset tangibility and profitability ratios. We attribute this to the economic and financial environment of the country. Small firms do not consider profitability when making external financing decisions. Firm level determinants are important for large firms regarding capital structure and debt maturity decisions. However, most of the economic and financial environment variables become insignificant. Therefore, the main difference between small and large firms is derived from the impact of the economic and financial environment of a country. Most of the economic and financial environment variables do not have statistically significant effects on the leverage and debt maturity decisions of large firms. We attribute this to large firms’ easy access to both domestic and international financial markets. Hence, if local governments provide better fiscal and monetary policies and a friendly business environment, small firms can amplify their leverage and debt maturity.

The costly lessons from global crisis in the past decade reinforce the importance as well as challenges of risk management. This thesis explores several core concepts of quantitative risk management and provides further insight. We start with rating migration risk and propose a Mixture of Markov Chains (MMC) model to account for stochastic business cycle effects in credit rating migration risk. The model shows superior in-sample estimation and out-of-sample predication than its rivals. Compared with the naive approach the economic application suggests banks with MMC estimator will increase capital requirement in economic expansion and free up capital during recession hence it is aligned with Basel III macroprudential imitative by reducing the recession-vs-expansion gap in capital buffers. Subsequently we move to the key concept of dependence by investigating the importance of dynamic linkages between credit and equity markets. We propose a flexible regime-switching copula model to explore the dynamics of dependence and possible structure breaks with special consideration on tail dependence. The study reveals a high-dependence regime that coincides with the recent financial crisis. The backtesting results acknowledge the new model's superiority on out-of-sample VaR forecasting over purely dynamic or static copula. It can serve to emphasise the relevance for risk management of appropriately modeling complex dependence structures. Finally we discuss the risk measures and how they affect the portfolio optimisation. We contend that more successful portfolio management can be achieved by combining extreme value analysis to describe downside tail risk and dynamic copulas to model nonlinear dependence structures. Conditional Value-at-Risk is adopted as pertinent measure of downside tail risk for portfolio optimisation. Using both realised portfolio returns and a set of out-of-sample Monte Carlo experiments, our novel portfolio strategy is confronted with the de facto mean-variance approach. The results suggest that the MV approach produces suboptimal portfolios or a less desirable risk-return tradeoff.

Islamic banks' operations are guided by the principles and values laid down in Islam (i.e., the Shari'ah). To ensure Shari'ah compliance on the operations of the bank and to inspire the confidence of shareholders and stakeholders, each Islamic bank is required to establish a Shari'ah board. This study empirically investigates the Shari'ah boards operating in the Malaysian Islamic banking industry and specifically examines the influence of the dual-layer Shari'ah governance system on Malaysian Islamic banking practices where, besides the regulated Shari'ah board, Shari'ah supervision at the highest level is undertaken by the Shari'ah Advisory Council (SAC) of the Central Bank of Malaysia. Two separate questionnaire surveys were distributed to banks offering Islamic banking in Malaysia. One was sent to the Shari'ah department of the Islamic banks and the second to the branch managers to assess the current practice and the expectations regarding how the issues investigated are being practised by the Shari'ah board. Furthermore, a series of in-depth interviews were undertaken with important stakeholders within the Malaysian Shari'ah governance framework. Essentially, this study indicates that Shari'ah boards do in the main undertake a valuable Shari'ah advisory role and reveals the existence of an established structure for Shari'ah reviews. However, the Shari'ah reviews were found not to be effectively implemented by the Shari'ah boards thus raising concern regarding the quality of the Shari'ah reports issued by the boards highlighting both the importance and need for an external Shari'ah audit. In addition, the composition of the Shari'ah board members is revealed to have influence over the quality of Shari'ah decisions issued by the board. Moreover, the integrity of the Shari'ah board members, such as their ethical value, reputation and scholarly background, was found to be important in influencing its accountability and independence. Interestingly, Shari'ah boards were also perceived by branch managers of not providing the required level of involvement. The study also emphasises that branch managers felt the Shari'ah Advisory Council (SAC) to be the most important party within the Malaysian Shari'ah governance framework, and that the dual-layer Shari'ah governance system was viewed as having contributed to the standardisation of Islamic banking. Also, it appears that the role played by the Shari'ah Advisory Council (SAC) is not limiting creativity in developing Islamic banking products.

The concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has had a long and varied history since its beginnings in the 1930s with the seminal work of Berle and Means. Many occidental studies regarding CSR have concentrated on natural environmental management and the influence of social and culture differences on such management. However, such research has not as yet been undertaken to any significant extent in the Malaysian context. To fill this gap, the present study therefore investigated environmental management in Malaysia’s banking sector, and the methods deployed by bank managers in evaluating and accommodating environmental risk in the credit assessment process. Malaysia was chosen as the study location because it is a multi racial country and has a dual banking system (conventional and Islamic banking). These characteristics enabled the study to investigate the influence of cultural and institutional differences on credit evaluation orientations, stakeholders’ group activism and perceptions, and general CSR orientations. To achieve the study aims, a questionnaire survey was designed to collect data from managers and executives in corporate banking departments whose main task is to evaluate loan applications, especially in project financing. The findings obtained from analyses of the data collected suggested that Malaysia’s banking sector has, in general, good environmental management practice. However, local banks’ environmental management practice falls short of that of international banks. It was also found that Islamic banks have better environmental management practice than conventional banks. As regards the credit evaluation process, the study findings suggested that environmental criteria are of secondary importance compared to financial and economic criteria. The study also found that cultural and institutional differences influenced the attitude of bank managers towards environmental management practice. Thus, to improve such practice in the future, these factors should be taken account of in the environmental policy development process if future rules and regulations, including environmental laws, are to gain widespread acceptance across racial and religious boundaries.

This thesis offers a detailed analysis of the politics of neoliberalism and financialization in the context of the UK mortgage market. The analysis addresses an often implied but conceptually and empirically neglected feature in the otherwise booming social sciences literature on financial markets and the global financial crisis: how political struggles shape economic space. It does this against the background of the construction of the UK mortgage market which, as opposed to its American counterpart, is still underresearched. The thesis addresses these shortcomings by engaging the theory of Ernesto Laclau and the associated logics approach of the Essex School of Political Discourse Theory. It provides a detailed genealogical analysis of the transformations in the mortgage market during the three decades leading up to the financial crisis emphasising the significance of hegemonic struggles and ideology in its constitution. Empirically, the thesis investigates the transformation of the mortgage market from a ‘sheltered circuit’ dominated by a building society price cartel in the 1970s to a sphere that is increasingly driven by global financial markets. It is argued that at the heart of these transformations was the neo-liberalist deregulation in the name of the signifier ‘freedom’ which, in the neoliberalist age, became almost exclusively equated with ‘free markets’. The demutualisations of the 1990s are presented as an outcome of neoliberalist deregulation leading to a fundamental shift of power in the market. In return for improved access to capital markets and powered by ideological discourses, the demutualisation of 10 societies resulted in a massive transfer of mortgage assets to the stock market and contributed significantly to the financialization of mortgages. The struggles and resistance surrounding these events illustrate their contingent nature. However, the proposed re-mutualisation of Northern Rock had been squandered amidst a re-affirmation of neoliberalist ideology centring on the market as the best provider of mortgages.

Malaysia is an ever-growing business hub in Asia. Due to the fact that Malaysia has diverging socio-economic, cultural, ethnic groups, and ethical systems, this study seeks to find out multicultural impacts on corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues and practices in the country. This study encompasses top and executive managers in financial services sector in Malaysia. A total of 1000 questionnaires were given out to the respondents in different segments of financial institutions in Malaysia namely commercial banks, investment banks, brokerage firms, fund management companies, insurance companies, unit trust companies, and large public fund organisations. The questionnaire used in this study was modified from Aupperle, Carroll and Hatfield (1995), Maignan and Ferrell (2000), and Maignan (2001). The questionnaire was used to measure perceptions about CSR elements as proposed by Carroll (1991): economic, legal,ethical and philanthropic responsibilities. The results indicated that top and executive managers ranked ethical responsibilities as the most important CSR duties for corporations. The results from the factor analysis revealed four drivers that were able to motivate corporations to practice CSR namely local and global forces, corporate image,economic performance, and cultural awareness. A depth observation across ethnicity of the respondents revealed that there are no homogenous results, especially with regards to Carroll’s CSR elements. The finding clearly demonstrated a separation of opinions between Malaysian bumiputera and Malaysian non-bumiputera respondents. This is potentially a significant finding since culture gives a significant impact on people attitude, behaviour and perception. The findings from this study suggest a unique CSR model for Malaysia and it is hoped to be the guide for local and international companies that is operating and that will be operating in this country.

This thesis makes four different contributions to the literature on international finance and corporate governance. Firstly, it examines the forward exchange rate bias and the forward premium puzzle, using weekly and daily data from thirty-one developed and emerging economies during 1999-2010. The forward-spot relationship is analysed through both a time series and a panel construction. Secondly, it investigatges empirically the relationship between the e3xchange rate and the term structure of interest rates, as proposed by Lim and Ogaki (eg Fama 1984: Lim and |Okaki 2004) using data from sixteen emerging economies during 1993-2001. Thirdly, it examines the impact of the term structure of the interest rates on bond risk in G7 countries and it tests the stability of this relation during pre- and post-financial crisis periods. Fourthly, this disseration exploes the link between a director's pay and corporate performance using a panel data set of FTSE 350 companies during 2004-2009. The empirical results deomonstrate a robust cointegrating forward-spot relationship and support the forward rate unbiasedness with high frequency data: however, the forward premium puzzle remains in most sample economies. The term structure of interest rates plays an important role in exchange rate determination and the cointegrating relationship is stable despite the presence of a number of exchange rate regime changes for the emerging economies. In this study the short rate is considered as a proxy for economic uncertainty and the yield spread is considered as a proxy for business condition. The findings show statistically significant effects of the short rate and yield spread on the bond risk for G7 economies, implying that interest rate policy may be important in reducing market volatility. Lastly, a positive and significant relationship is identified between corporate performance and a director's pay in both levels and first difference regression specifications, and through both directions. However, this link has broken down since recent financial crisis