Recent events in global capital markets have underscored the impotence of securities regulation and paucity of ethical behaviour. With the resurgence of virtue ethics it only seems appropriate that a concerted effort should be undertaken to apply this model to the financial services industry. This thesis will apply Alasdair MacIntyre's tripartite notion of virtue ethics as explicated in his highly acclaimed work After Virtue to the role of the Investment Advisor in the Canadian financial services industry. MacIntyre's concepts of practice, narrative order of a single human life and the notion of tradition will be applied to the role of the Investment Advisor and the institutions that accommodate the profession. It will be concluded that MacIntyre's notions of practice and narrative order of a single human life is readily applicable but due to MacIntyre's profound criticism of capitalism, the notion of tradition is more difficult to incorporate comprehensively.

Depuis les années 90, on a observé une accélération du changement dans le secteur financier en général et ceci a l'échelle planétaire. Particulièrement innovatrices dans le domaine des instruments financiers, les banques et les maisons de courtage en valeur mobilière ont peut-etre pavé la voie à des restructurations et réorganisations encore plus importantes dans l'ensemble des secteurs de l'économie. Nous pensons qu'à la base, des outils de gestion du risque permettront aux administrateurs de se concentrer davantage sur des objectifs stratégiques de leur entreprise que sur des problèmes d'ordre opérationnel. Nous connaissons en effet, grâce à ce mouvement, une augmentation en volume, en variété et en éfficacité des nouveaux instruments financiers (NIF) et des transactions sur des produits dérivés des titres financiers classiques. Cette thèse vise à développer un cadre d'analyse en ce qui concerne les placements dans les instruments financiers dérivatifs par le moyen de véhicules juridiques transparents. L'intérêt de la question repose sur une base théorique et pratique. Sur un plan théorique, on constate de plus en plus de difficultés à cerner la nature et la qualification des NIFs. En outre, les instruments financiers dérivatifs, les hybrides, les contrats de crédit croisé ou autres véhicules de placements modernes comportent des éléments d'une telle complexité juridique, financière et fiscale qu'une expertise particulière est parfois nécessaire afin d'en connaître les effets possibles. Bien que l'on sache que les NIFs peuvent servir dans diverses situations en matière de risque financier, il est difficile de cerner exactement les attributs pour lesquels leurs détenteurs en font l'acquisition et si ces raisons sont justifiées. Par exemple on cherchera à savoir si leur qualification officielle est juste et équitable et s'il est opportun de les representer aux états financiers pour les tiers et les lecteurs des rapports annuels. Ceci rappelle les controverses concernant la présentation aux états financiers de passifs éventuels reliés à ces instruments dans des faillites notoires, alors que très peu d'information probante permettait de détérminer avec précision les montants des garanties en cause. Ce n'est qu'après des préjudices importants que toutes ces faits seraient connus de façon claire tandis qu'ils auraient jusqu'alors été voilés sous le couvert de questions théoriques. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

This study is concerned with the effects of capital controls on long-term economic growth. At its conceptual core, the dissertation addresses weaknesses in neoclassical and Keynesian theory, viz. the problems of both market and state coordination, that preclude an adequate analysis of the use of capital controls. Investigated are (1) the problems associated with more traditional approaches to the analysis of the role of capital controls; (2) the explication of an alternative theoretical structure; and (3) the utility of that theoretical structure in the case analysis of two newly industrializing economies. The study makes use of theoretical, historical, institutional and empirical analyses. The study's investigation of capital controls within the context of overall stat economic planning is methodologically innovative in that it highlights a specific configuration on government interventions termed a "government intervention triad": government economic planning, capital control regulations and credit control systems. The findings from this study highlight and tend to resolve the inherent paradox between the practices of capital controls and conventional theoretical analyses. When analytic models capture and emphasize institutional and structural realities, such as unemployment, uncertainty and instability in financial markets, heterogeneous agents, multiple equilibria and differentials between social and private returns, a positive case for controls is often made. This may explain the widespread use of the strategy despite the generally negative projections from more traditionally prominent theories. Two case studies, of the Republic of Korea and the Federative Republic of Brazil, illustrate the ways in which a relatively consistent history of selectively imposed and well-enforced capital controls, used in conjunction with credit controls and development/industrial planning, helps to solve the problems of capital creation, preservation, productivity, coordination and discipline. In addition to the evidence from the case studies, empirical analyses reveal that both countries have low levels of estimated capital flight relative to similar countries. Econometric analysis of their capital flight suggests that standard regressions of the determinants of capital flight may not be particularly helpful when applied to countries with low levels of flight and with a history of consistent use of capital controls.

The first chapter explores the link between inequality and longer work hours. It shows that desire to keep up with the consumption standard set by the rich provides a link between inequality and work hour. In an attempt to provide an empirical support for this idea, I find that coefficient of inequality is statistically significant in both OLS and fixed effects estimates and its effects are large and estimates are robust across a variety of specifications. The second chapter further develops the idea of Veblen effect by showing relationship between earnings inequality of men and labor supply decision of their wives. This result not only confirms the proposed effect of earnings inequality on individual labor supply decision, it also discriminates emulation effect from other explanations about the potential link such as rat-race model. The third chapter provides a cost-benefit analysis of relationship banking. When banks can acquire ex post informational monopoly on borrowing firms, banks may increase the number of firms they initially finance by offering lower loan rates. At the same time, banks have an incentive to limit the size of loans granted to young and untested firms, preventing the potential over-investment problem that may arise from the lower loan rates they offer. Therefore, relationship banks can effectively prevent over-investment that has been suggested as a potential problem of relationship banking. Using NSSBF data set, I show that the young and small firms in a concentrated banking market display relatively lower debt-to-asset ratio and less institutional debt while the interest rates offered to them are lower.

This study provides a test of the market valuation impact of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement actions for foreign firms. I examine the SEC enforcement policy towards foreign firms under its jurisdiction. In contrast to Siegel (2005) who examines earlier years, I find that the SEC's current (post-2002) enforcement intensity is considerable and has increased dramatically by comparison. I construct a novel test using the burgeoning series SEC enforcement events as changes to the legal environment that circumvents the issues associated with firm-level exchange-listing events (e.g. self-selection and simultaneous changes to firm traits). The tests focus on stock returns of foreign firms not targeted by the SEC during event windows surrounding SEC announcements of enforcements against foreign firms. This isolates the effect of a changing enforcement environment. I find that when the SEC takes action against a foreign firm, non-target foreign firms experience positive stock returns. Returns are amplified for firms from weaker home legal environments, suggesting that the returns are due to a perceived increase in SEC scrutiny. Finally, consistent with the market adjusting to the new enforcement regime, the magnitude of non-target firm returns declines with each sequential SEC enforcement action. The overall results provide evidence that SEC oversight plays a significant role in increasing the value of foreign firms, which supports the legal bonding hypothesis discussed in prior literature.

The number of multinational banks (MNBs) has increased in Central Europe, while the amount of real credit has decreased. This dissertation investigates whether there is a causal link between increased international financial competition (IFC) and the decline of real credit in Poland and Hungary, and what the impact of declining real lending is on investment across industries. First, based on the Hungarian and Polish experiences I analyze whether there is a link between greater IFC and less real credit. I provide an argument that links the number of MNBs to capital levels for domestic banks, and hence to their lending capacity. I test this argument empirically using data from central banks, central statistical offices, and private institutions, and exploring alternative explanations for declining real credit. The evidence suggests that Polish and Hungarian banks are placed in a paradoxical situation since greater IFC raises their need for capital, but also limits their ability to attract it. The evidence indicates further that the efficiency increases from competition do not outweigh the limits on domestic banks' capital, which in turn helps to explain the decline in real credit. Second, I use panel and time series data to test whether early IFC has partially caused declining real lending. I test this hypothesis based on a credit supply function for domestic banks, and on data for 9 regional and 5 specialized Polish banks for 39 months. The estimation results indicate that domestic banks increase lending in anticipation of greater international financial competition, but that they decrease their lending once MNBs have established operations. As a net result of these two effects the supply of credit declines. Third, I study how the decline in real credit has affected the amount of investment in Polish industries. I use a model that links finance and investment, and a data set of 23 observations for 25 industries. The panel estimation results suggest that internal and external finance are significant in determining investment, and that industries prefer internal over external finance.

Although there has been growing interest in the social impacts of financial deregulation in economies across the world, a large research gap persists. Despite voluminous literature, there has been very little empirical work addressing the distributional consequences of a liberal financial regime. This dissertation seeks to make such an assessment. Developing a theoretical model and a new and improved index of deregulation, this dissertation uses panel data analysis to test the effects of international capital mobility on the share of labor in national income. The results suggest that capital account openness reduces the labor share of national income, thereby providing evidence for the thesis that capital mobility alters the bargaining power of labor and capital to the detriment of the former. The cross country study is supplemented by two case studies of India and Indonesia which assess the impacts of both international and domestic deregulation on other aspects of distribution. The results suggest that despite the contrasting approaches to financial liberalization, in both economies it has considerably reduced the scope for policy makers to undertake egalitarian developmental policies and to protect vulnerable sections of society.

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