Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-160). / by Alun Huw Thomas. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis is a collection of papers in which behavior genetic methods are used to shed light on individual differences in economic preferences, behaviors and outcomes. Chapter one uses the classical twin design to provide estimates of genetic and environmental influences on experimentally elicited preferences for risk and giving. The paper reports evidence that these preferences are broadly heritable, with estimates suggesting that genetic differences explain approximately twenty percent of individual variation. The results thus point to genes as an important source of individual variation in preferences, a source which has hitherto been largely neglected in the economics literature. The chapter is written with Christopher T. Dawes, Magnus Johannesson, Paul Lichtenstein and Bjorn Wallace. Chapter two shows that these findings also extend to the field. Following a major pension reform in the late 1990s, all Swedish adults had to form a portfolio from a large menu of funds. Matching individual investment decisions to the Swedish Twin Registry, the paper finds that approximately 25% of individual variation in portfolio risk is due to genetic variation. The results, which are complementary to those reported in chapter one, also hold for several other aspects of financial decision-making. The chapter is written with Magnus Johannesson, Paul Lichtenstein, Orjan Sandewall and Bjorn Wallace. Chapter three uses two complementary Swedish datasets to examine the importance of family environment in explaining variation in income, educational attainment, and measures of cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Using seven different sibling types who differ in their degree of genetic relatedness and rearing status, I find moderate family effects on educational attainment, cognitive skills and non-cognitive skills. This contrasts with the effects of family on income, which are low. Additional analyses, based on a sample of identical (MZ) and fraternal (DZ) twins for which more comprehensive income data is available, reveal large and persistent separation of the MZ and DZ correlations over the entire lifecycle, except at very early ages. One interpretation of this finding is that there are strong family effects on the timing of labor market entry. I discuss the relevance of these results for efforts to understand the causes of income inequality. / by David Alexander Cesarini. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1966. / by George Arthur Akerlof. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. / The first chapter of this dissertation examines the behavior of long- and short-term capital gains distributions after the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1997, which lowered the maximum tax rate on long-term gains. Using a panel of mutual fund data, I examine the ratio of long-term to total gains distributions around the time of the Act, and find that fund managers appear to tilttheir distributions towards the long-term after 1997. This behavior is consistent with the hypothesis that managers are tax-sensitive, and the estimates are robust to the inclusion of fund-level fixed effects and other controls. I also examine fund capital gains patterns in a difference-in-differences framework, comparing actively managed to index funds; this technique gives a lower-bound estimate of the increase in the fraction of gains paid-out as long-term after the Act of five percentage points. The second chapter examines equity mutual fund dividend yields. Dividends are highly-taxed for individual investors, but tax-favored for corporate investors. Consequently, I hypothesize that corporate investors may prefer to hold higher-dividend yield funds than non-corporate investors. I use institutional funds as a proxy for corporate, trust, or non-profit shareholders, and find that these funds do have systematically higher dividend yields than their retail counterparts. These results are consistent with the tax clientele hypothesis, and are robust to the inclusion of a number of fund- and industry-level controls. / (cont.) Chapter three, co-authored with James Poterba, documents the increasing use of redemption fees throughout the mutual fund industry. These fees are levied against investors who liquidate their positions before a specified time, and are paid back into the fund to compensate existing investors for the negative externalities of redemptions. We find that foreign and sector funds are more likely to impose redemption fees, and that institutional funds are less likely to have fees. Using data from the SEC, we find that the largest funds with redemption fees collected nearly $58 million in fees in 2000. We also find that funds with redemption fees appear to have lower turnover and higher returns than their no-fee counterparts, controlling for time, fund objective, and other characteristics. / by Stephanie L. Plancich. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Marianne Parcella Bitler. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Leora Friedberg. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Sadao Nagaoka. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-162). / by Lorraine Chen. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation consists of three essays that examine banking and corporate finance in developing countries. Specifically, it explores the theoretical and empirical implications of open capital markets, foreign bank entry, and the role of bond markets during banking crises. Chapter 1 analyzes the impact of opening capital markets using a theoretical model that incorporates both foreign and domestic lenders in the presence of asymmetric information. The model suggests that when foreign lenders are limited in their ability to obtain information about entrepreneurs, they may engage in cream-skimming by only targeting the largest, most profitable firms. This cream-skimming can induce a reallocation of credit that may either increase or decrease overall net output of the open economy. The consequences of this credit reallocation depend on the type of financial opening and the quality of domestic institutions. Chapter 2 examines the entry of foreign banks as a specific case of opening capital markets. I estimate the impact of entry using variation in the location of foreign banks established in India following a policy change in 1994. The estimates indicate that the 10 percent most profitable firms received larger bank loans, but that on average, firms were 7.6 percentage points less likely to have a loan after entry. / (cont.) The decline in loans was uncorrelated with firms' profitability and driven by a decrease among group-affiliated firms. The reallocation is consistent with the presence of asymmetric information, and similar estimates are obtained using the location of pre-existing foreign firms as an instrument for the location choice of new banks. Chapter 3, co-authored with Simon Johnson and Changyong Rhee, uses a quasi-natural experiment in Korea after the 1997-98 financial crises to assess bond markets in emerging economies. Evidence confirms that bond markets can develop quickly during a banking crisis and act as a 'spare tire' even when almost all previous private finance flowed through the banking system. However, access to bonds was feasible only for the largest firms, and there is no evidence that bond finance was better directed than bank finance. Firms with weaker pre-crisis corporate governance were no less likely to obtain bond financing. / by Todd A. Gormley. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Rohan Pitchford. / Ph.D.