Since its creation in 1992, the Premier League has sold exclusive media rights for live football matches to broadcasters on behalf of member clubs. The collective selling method removes any price competition between the clubs, whom would otherwise compete against each other to sell rights to their matches (commonly seen in other European Leagues). A key issue with monopoly power is that the Premier League could distort the market for its product or abuse its dominant position in the market as the sole seller of the rights (contrary to Article 101 and 102 of the Treaty of the European Union). In defence, the Premier League argued that matches broadcast live on television can be considered as a substitute for watching at the stadium. A Competition Commission investigation concluded that the potential benefits of collective selling arrangements are for the redistribution of revenue to promote solidarity at all levels of football. After some amendments to the auction process, collective selling continues. Contributing to the applied industrial economics literature, this thesis examines the key arguments for using collective selling methods in the Premier League. Results from empirical economic analysis find firstly, that there is no evidence to suggest a negative impact on match day revenue from live broadcasting and the revenues from rights sales heavily outweigh such an impact. Secondly, that sharing revenue between clubs will only enhance solidarity (competitive balance) if the amount shared is much larger than at present, however, a greater uncertainty of match outcome reduces demand for spectating at the stadium whilst increasing demand for television viewing. Finally, the impact of investment in talent is far greater for weaker teams whilst participating in the Champions League and Europa League has no impact on domestic league performance. This thesis concludes that the Premier League should offer a greater number of rights to broadcast matches and should increase the amount of revenue shared (including revenues from European Competitions) in order to increase competitive balance. This would increase the number of television viewers for live football broadcasts but would likely reduce the numbers of fans spectating at the stadium.

In September 2011, the UN General Secretary declared his vision of making modern energy accessible to all by 2030. Unfortunately, less than 50% of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa have access to modern forms of energy. This implies that Africa requires sustained investment in the energy sector. In order to provide investment guide and policy recommendations, this thesis seeks to investigate the determinants of renewable energy, energy efficiency practices and natural gas demand in oil producing African countries. The choice of these types of fuel is dictated by the fact that, renewable energy, energy efficiency and natural gas have been considered the solution to the hydra-headed problems of energy security, energy access and climate change in Africa. The thesis contributes to the energy economics literature in four main ways. First, the thesis applies spatial analysis to the issue of ‗oil curse‘ which has often been associated with oil producing African countries since investments in energy will require finance which can be provided by proceeds from oil resources. Second, the effect of natural resource depletion and energy-related carbon emissions on renewable energy consumption is examined. Third, the natural gas consumption behavior of oil producing African countries is examined. Finally, the Product Generational Dematerialisation (PGD) is applied to the energy efficiency of fossil fuels and electricity consumption in Ghana. The thesis finds among other things that both economic and technical factors affect the demand for natural gas and renewable energy. Further, the results reveal that the consumption of both fossil fuel and renewables have not been efficient. Finally, the thesis confirms the oil curse hypothesis. However, how conducive the investment climate in a particular country has positive bearings on neighbouring countries. Whilst the study seeks to recommend for more investment into energy supply and demand, attention should be given to three factors: availability, the environment and finance. Whereas, renewable energy sources, natural gas and efficiency abound in Africa and are environmentally friendly, finance may be a major hindrance to investments. Therefore, the sixth chapter of this thesis, examines how oil resources are managed so that it can help fund investments in energy. The chapters are therefore linked by the need for oil producing African countries to harness the finances to invest in available and clean sources of energy. The thesis recommends that oil producing Africa should open their economies for international trade, invest in commercial sources of renewable energy, build strong accountability institutions, channel oil revenues into productive sectors and educate the public on energy efficiency not just electricity efficiency.

<p> This research informs an ongoing debate regarding a firm&rsquo;s incentives to invest in information security. Previous research reported that data breaches have had a decreasing impact on a company&rsquo;s stock price over time, leading researchers to conclude that market-based incentives are decreasingly effective. Some information security economists also suggested that further regulation is necessary because they found that capital market participants poorly accounted for the spillover effects of a breach&mdash;the effects of a breach that are external to the breached company. However, some studies indicate that sector-wide systematic risk could measure spillover effects and that the effects of a data breach on systematic risk may have changed over time. The purpose of this study was to quantitatively describe the relationship between the data breach of a firm and changes to the systematic risk of that firm&rsquo;s sector. This dissertation used event studies of sector-wide systematic risk within American stock markets to measure the external effects of breaches that occurred in companies within the financial, technology, healthcare and services sectors. The use of a repeated measures analysis of variance between those event studies allowed examination of longitudinal changes to sector-wide systematic risk between 2006 through 2016. This analysis found that the breach of an individual company had a significant impact on the systematic risk for that company&rsquo;s entire sector (1.08% in 2016) and that these impacts have increased over time (<i>p</i> = 0.015). The results were consistent across all measured sectors, without any significant correlation attributable to the scope of the breach. Together, these findings suggest that market forces are increasingly incentivizing sector-wide investment in information security. Further research should consider the potential for government enforced meta-regulation of sector defined information security standards.</p><p>

<p> This research quantifies risk reduction and performance of the producer accumulator contract in corn and soybean markets. To quantify performance, we use three alternative theoretical pricing models to estimate historical producer accumulator contract specifications in corn and soybean markets. We then compare the performance of the producer accumulator to eight alternative agricultural marketing strategy portfolios that are also used in new generation grain contracts.</p><p> The performance measures we compare are: average bushel price that would be received by the producer, daily portfolio risk, and the Sharpe ratio. The period we examine performance was between 2008 and 2017. We investigate performance of the producer accumulator executed during each year, month, whether the contract was executed during the growing season or non-growing season, and beginning and following an uptrend, neutral trend, and downtrend ranging in length from 25 to 100-days. Specific to the producer accumulator, we also quantify bushels accumulated during the contract period.</p><p> We find the average price the producer would expect to receive adopting an accumulator to slightly underperform the average price they would receive with a long futures portfolio in corn and slightly outperform long futures in soybeans. Nevertheless, the accumulator significantly reduces daily risk compared to the long futures portfolio. Indeed, producer accumulator portfolios produced average daily Sharpe ratios exceeding all other simulated risk management strategies in corn and soybeans on an average annual and average aggregate basis from 2008-2017. Consequently, the producer accumulator portfolio offered corn and soybean producers the best risk adjusted return to hedge production during this time-frame.</p><p>

Accurate measurement of asset return volatility and correlation is an important problem in financial econometrics. The presence of market microstructure noise in high-frequency data complicates such estimations. This study extends a prior application of a model-based volatility estimator with autocorrelated market microstructure noise to estimation of correlation. The model is applied to a high-frequency dataset including a stock and an index, and the results are compared to some existing models. This study supports previous findings that including an autocorrelation factor produces an estimator potentially less vulnerable to market microstructure noise, and finds that the same is true about the extended correlation estimator that is introduced here.

These essays attempt to explain why debt contracts are so common, and to explore the consequences resulting from the use of debt contracts. In the first essay, “Moral Hazard and the Optimality of Debt,” I use tools from information theory to study a novel form of moral hazard, and show that debt contracts are the optimal security design in this setting. In the second essay, “Generalized Rational Inattention,” written with Michael Woodford, we develop a generalized version of rational inattention, based on an axiomatic characterization, using the same theorems employed in the first essay. In the third essay, “The Costs of Sovereign Default: Evidence from Argentina,” written with Jesse Schreger, we estimate the costs that Argentina’s 2014 sovereign default imposed on Argentine firms. / Business Economics

When does government intervention successfully correct perceived market failures? What effects do such interventions have on firm decisions? These questions are especially vital to the energy sector, which features large negative externalities, volatile commodity prices, and intensive regulation. My dissertation examines energy policies in three otherwise disparate contexts: a U.S. national research and development (R&D) subsidy intended to expedite clean energy technology deployment; a U.S. state-level oil price risk management policy targeting highway paving firms; and a Chinese fuel economy standard aimed at reducing oil consumption and hastening technology adoption among Chinese automakers. Each analysis evaluates the public policy and uses it to glean insight into firm financial constraints and innovation investment. Together, the three chapters contribute to the literatures on entrepreneurial finance, corporate risk management, innovation, and industrial policy. Motivating the first paper is the observation that governments regularly subsidize new ventures to spur innovation, often in the form of R&D grants. I examine the effects of such grants in the first large-sample, quasi-experimental evaluation of R&D subsidies. I implement a regression discontinuity design using data on ranked applicants to the Small Business Innovation Research grant program at the U.S. Department of Energy. An award approximately doubles the probability that a firm receives subsequent venture capital and has large, positive impacts on patenting and the likelihood of achieving revenue. The effects are stronger for more financially constrained firms. In the second part of the paper, I use a signal extraction model to identify why grants lead to future funding. The evidence is inconsistent with a certification effect, where the award contains information about firm quality. Instead, the grant money itself is valuable, possibly because it funds proof-of-concept work that reduces investor uncertainty about the technology. The second chapter examines how firms manage oil price risk when oil is an important input cost. Despite a rich theoretical literature, there is little empirical evidence about risk management heterogeneity across firm types. I evaluate a policy that shifts oil price risk in highway procurement from the private sector to the government, reducing the cost of hedging to zero. In a triple-differences design using data from Kansas and Iowa, I show that firms value hedging oil price risk between the auction and commencement of work. Consistent with the prediction that hedging is more valuable for financially constrained firms, I find higher risk premiums in private vis-à-vis public firms and in smaller vis-à-vis larger firms. I also find that family ownership and a lack of diversification are associated with higher risk premiums. Competition is highly imperfect in this industry. Monopoly power in product markets, together with market frictions in derivative hedging, may limit the pass- through of risk to financial markets, and thus prevent efficient allocation of risk. I turn to China - a very different economic setting - in the third chapter. Technology absorption is critical to emerging market growth. To study this process I exploit fuel economy standards, which compel automakers to either acquire fuel efficiency technology or reduce vehicle quality. With novel, unique data on the Chinese auto market between 1999 and 2012, I evaluate the effect of China’s 2009 fuel economy standards on firms’ vehicle characteristic choices. Through differences-in-differences and triple differences designs, I show that Chinese firms responded to the new policy by manufacturing less powerful, cheaper, and lighter vehicles. Foreign firms manufacturing for the Chinese market, conversely, continued on their prior path. For example, domestic firms reduced model torque and price by 12% and 13% of their respective means relative to foreign firms. Private Chinese firms outperformed state-owned firms and were less affected by the standards, but Chinese firms in joint ventures with foreign firms suffered the largest negative effect regardless of ownership. My evidence suggests that fuel economy standards and joint venture mandates - both intended to increase technology transfer - have instead retarded Chinese firms’ advancement up the automotive manufacturing quality ladder. / Political Economy and Government

This dissertation studies the behavior of institutional investors, who control a large share of the world's investment capital, with the goal of shedding light on when and how those investors reveal information. Guided by economic intuition, I highlight instances in which the trades of fund managers are particularly informative. I focus on hedge funds and present evidence that in these instances funds' decisions predict future asset price movements. These results demonstrate that fund managers possess valuable information. At the same time, my findings support a view of the world in which fund managers have more capital than what they allocate to opportunities with high expected returns. Hedge funds may be “smart” -- they may be able to identify mispriced securities -- while still delivering poor returns to their investors. Chapter 1 presents evidence that price impact is an important consideration even at the quarterly time horizon of the trades I observe. If fund trades generate price impact, and if price impact is a function of volume, then funds should only be willing to trade a large share of volume when their information is compelling. Indeed, I find that hedge funds predict future stock returns when they purchase a large share of volume. I also provide evidence that the price impact of fund trades incorporates information into stock prices. If informative prices impact real economic decision making then these findings support the welfare relevance of the active management industry. Chapter 2 shows that funds avoid adding to losing positions. When they do, however, they predict future stock-level outperformance. These results are consistent with a career risks mechanism, as adding to a losing position corresponds to reverse window dressing. They also suggest a position-level limits-to-arbitrage effect. Chapter 3 demonstrates that hedge funds frequently buy back into stocks they have held in the past. This phenomenon occurs much more often than it would by chance. I use these findings to argue that fund managers develop company-specific expertise that persists over time. When funds establish expert positions after poor past stock-level performance, they predict future stock-level excess returns. / Economics

Abstract not available.

Issuing stocks is the key method to raise money for corporations. Today, stocks have become the most important financial instruments. Currently, there are several methods by which one can predict financial markets, but none of them is quite accurate. After introducing same basic concepts and the history of stocks, this work continues to introduce some typical fundamental and technical analysis methods already developed by economists, and then presents a relatively new system to forecast the stack market using revised Back Propagation (BP) algorithms. The system exploits BP neural networks to help find the correlation between stock price and the affecting factors hidden behind the financial market. The topology is a typical three-layer neural network with one input layer, one hidden layer and one output layer. The supervised algorithms are the Feed-forward, Cascade-forward, and Elman BP. They are trained respectively by seven BP techniques: the Gradient Descent BP, the Gradient Descent With Momentum BP, the Gradient Descent With Adaptive Learning Rate BP, the Gradient Descent With Momentum & Adaptive Learning Rate BP, the Levenberg-Marquardt BP, the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) Quasi-Newton, and the Resilient Propagation (RPROP) BP. Data used to train and test the neural networks involve the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index, and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Component Index.