When a company decides to sell their shares to the public for the first time it is called an initial public offering. For quite some time, the literature on the subject has come to the conclusion that the companies going public often undervalue their share price prior to the initial public offering resulting in an abnormal positive return on the first trading day, also known as initial public offering underpricing.  This thesis aims to study whether initial public offering underpricing occurred in the Swedish markets during the selected time period of 2000-2022. The thesis also seeked to find whether there was a significant difference in underpricing depending if the company was listed on OMX Stockholm or First north growth market. Further, with the help of previous research on the topic, a few independent variables were retrieved and later regressed against the initial return on the first trading day and thus seeing if these variables explains if a company will see an increase in the share price on the first trading day or not. The independent variables collected were age of the company at the time of the initial public offering, deal size, the market the company was listed on and lastly the year the company was listed on the stock exchange. The study concluded that there was a significant underpricing in Swedish initial public offerings during the studied time period with an average first day initial return of 12.56%. However, the thesis further concluded that neither of the independent variables studied had a significant effect on the initial return on the first trading day. Neither could the thesis conclude that there was a significant difference in underpricing between the two studied markets, although, the sample from OMX Stockholm saw an average underpricing of 11.09% whilst first north saw an average underpricing of 13.79%.

<p dir="ltr">This paper examines the informational content of insider trades and the impact of the Sarbanes Oxley Act on the ability of outside investors to use this information. I find that while the new reporting requirement speeds up the incorporation of insiders’ information into the market, there still exists an opportunity for attentive outsiders. The studies also address how the increased market efficiency has affected the differences between insiders, such as top-level executives and the rest of insiders. I find that the Sarbanes Oxley Act has greatly leveled the playing field in terms of how outsiders perceive these groups. Further, I extend the analysis of identifying opportunistic insiders. I find that using 8K corporate events in addition to quarterly earnings announcements, we are able to more efficiently label insiders as opportunistic compared to previous studies. Finally, I extend the literature on institutional investors by analyzing the link between this group and insider activity. I show that the previous findings of institutional investors following insiders is being driven by a subset of institutions, and I find evidence to support important distinguishing characteristics of institutional investors indicating institutions should not be studied as a whole, but in groups.</p>

Financial Derivatives are one of the most popular and emerging innovations in the field of financial engineering. Since their inception, there has been a phenomenal growth in the volumes of derivatives traded all over the world. Financial markets are known to be extremely volatile and derivatives provide a way of eliminating or reducing the risks involved in these markets. Since these instruments derive their value from some underlying asset, trading in these instruments is bound to affect the underlying assets. Thus it becomes important to examine what these effects are and whether they have been favourable or detrimental to the underlying stock markets specially when there has been an explosive growth of these financial derivatives all over the world. This issue gains more importance in the case of emerging markets like India as they try to be more competitive and efficient as the developed Western markets. This thesis mainly deals with looking at this impact on the Indian stock markets. The Indian markets still being very new in this area, not many studies have been reported here related to this issue. The main focus of this thesis is to provide some more evidence on the impact of one kind of derivative instrument, namely options on different characteristics of underlying stocks in the Indian stock market. The thesis has the following objectives: • To examine the impact of option introduction on the price of underlying stocks in National Stock Exchange (NSE). • To examine the impact of option introduction on the volatility of underlying stocks in NSE • To examine the impact of option introduction on liquidity of underlying stocks in NSE NSE introduced derivatives beginning with index futures on June 12, 2000, followed by index options on June 4, 2001, options on individual securities on July 2, 2001 and finally futures on individual securities on November 9, 2001. Due to the temporal proximity of the introduction of index options and individual options, there exists a possibility of an interaction of these two effects. This problem is solved by a judiciously chosen sampling design. In particular, three groups of stocks are considered. The first group consists of stocks on which options were first introduced on 2nd July 2001 and thus would exhibit a combined effect of the two events if any. The second group consists of stocks on which options were introduced much later and therefore would show effects of individual option introduction if any. The third group comprises of nonoptioned stocks whose returns are considered around the date of index option introduction and thus would show effects of index option alone if any. To separate the two effects an ANOVA/ Logistic Regression model is used. An objective selection of the event and estimation windows is done using a Bayesian Change Point Analysis. The first part of the thesis looks at the effect of option introduction on the price of underlying stocks. A standard event study methodology as has been used in the literature is employed for this purpose. The study does not find any significant effect of option introduction on the prices. The second part of the thesis deals with the effect on volatility. Volatility is measured as the risk of a stock and as is done in the literature, three kinds of risk are looked at: total risk, systematic risk and the unsystematic risk. In case of the total risk, an F-test and an Ansari Bradley test is used to check for changes in the variance and scale parameters of market-adjusted continuously compounded returns of the stocks before and after option introduction. The results of these tests are recorded as a categorical variable taking on the value 0 for no change and 1 for a change and a Binomial Logistic Regression is used to separate the effects of the two events. Furthermore, after recording the results of the above mentioned tests as a categorical variable with three categories (0, 1, -1), a Multinomial Logistic Regression is also used in order to estimate the direction of the change (increase, decrease or no change). The ratios of after to before total risks are also analyzed using an ANOVA model. The systematic risk is measured using three kinds of betas – OLS betas, Scholes-Williams betas and Fowler-Rorke betas. The differences in the before and after betas of every stock are modelled using an ANOVA model in order to separate the two effects as well as the interaction effect. The unsystematic risk is estimated by the conditional variances and the unconditional variances of ARMA and ARMA-GARCH models fitted to market model excess returns. The ANOVA model is used here as well. In addition to this, the before and after ARCH and GARCH coefficients of GARCH (1, 1) models fitted to the excess returns are also compared using the ANOVA model. The results indicate that individual options are leading to a decline in total risk however index options are causing an increase in total risk. The interaction effect is significant in this case thereby causing an increase in total risk in the Group I stocks. The OLS betas indicate that individual option introduction seems to have increased the systematic risk. The Scholes-Williams betas indicate that index option introduction seems to have increased the systematic risk. The Fowler Rorke betas on the other hand, do not show any significant impact of individual option or index option introduction. For all the three betas index options introduction seems to have no effect on the systematic risk. Though the interaction effect seems to be significant in all the three cases, it however does not significantly affect the systematic risk in Group I stocks. As regards the unsystematic risk, both the conditional and unconditional variances of ARMA models show a significant reduction for individual option introduction but index options do not have any significant impact on either one of these measures. In case of unconditional variances of ARMA-GARCH models, none of the effects come out as significant. While comparing the news and persistence coefficients of GARCH (1, 1) models, the news coefficients indicate that the due to index option introduction, stocks are becoming more efficient in terms of absorbing the news more rapidly. No significant effect of either event is found on the persistence coefficients. The last part of the thesis deals with the liquidity issue. Liquidity has been measured using two measures – relative volume (based on daily data) and implicit bid-ask spread given by Roll (1984) (calculated from intra-day data). In case of the liquidity measures, the Logistic Regression models are used i.e. a categorical variable with two or three categories obtained from the results of a Wilcoxon Rank Sum test for comparing the median volume and spread before and after option introduction, is used. It is found that for the relative volume, individual option introduction has led to a favourable effect in terms of increasing the volume post introduction of options; however index options seem to have had a negative effect. As for the spread, index options seem to have had a stabilizing influence on the underlying stocks than the individual options.

Is home biasness common among modern investors? To which extent do Swedish investors diversify their investments on an international level? Does home biasness negatively affect the investors performance? To answer these questions, correlation tests of various international indices ranging over four different time periods are conducted, in order to see if correlation between markets are stronger today than before, as stronger correlation would render diversification less useful. To enhance the study, the holdings of the top ten Swedish funds, measured in fund capital according to Morningstar, is reviewed, based on data collected per 2014-12-31 from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Agency (FI). This gives an overview of how the funds diversify their investments internationally, these funds will in turn represent the average Swedish investor in the thesis. By constructing a bullet curve from a set of international indices, the author will analyse to which grade international diversification is useful. The results are that international diversification isn’t as beneficial as theory suggests it is. The reason for it may be due to stronger correlation between international markets in the past 15 years. Most of the Swedish funds tends to be rather home biased in their investments, as about a quarter of the holdings usually are placed in Swedish assets, and in accordance with the results of the indices development, the more home biased they are to Sweden, the better they tend to perform. / Hur vanligt är egentligen home biasness hos den moderna investeraren? Till vilken grad diversifierar egentligen den vanliga Svenska investeraren sina tillgångar internationellt? Påverkar en eventuellt inhemskt investeringsfilosofi investeraren negativt? Korrelationstester för olika världsindex kommer utföras, så att en överskådade blick kan fås över hur världsmarknader rör sig allt mer symmetriskt, då starkare symmetri mellan marknader minskar nyttan av internationell diversifiering. Data om innehav från Sveriges topp tio fonder, sett till fondförmögenhet utifrån Morningstar, har samlats från finansinspektionen per 2014-12-31. Dessa fonder ska representera den typiske Svenska investeraren och dess diversifieringsvanor. Genom att ha samlat data från ett flertal internationella index har effektiv front samt en fiktiv kombination av index skapats för att få fram huruvida avkastning i relation till risk ökar genom internationell diversifiering. Denna kombination av index jämförs sedan mot utveckling av en handfull internationellt samlade index för att se om diversifiering förbättrar avkastningen i relation till risk. Resultatet säger att det index som är mest diversifierade inte är så gynnsamt som teorin påstår. Anledningen till detta kan bero på den ökade korrelationen bland aktiemarknader idag jämfört med för 15 år sedan. De flesta Svenska fonderna har en större andel av sitt innehav i Svenska värdepapper och överlag, förutom diverse undantag, så har det gynnat dessa fonder i avkastning sett till risk.

This D.Phil. dissertation investigates the areas in financial stability. The three comprising essays have a common ground: money, default and collateral in the theory of finance. Chapter Two (co-authored with Prof. Dimitrios Tsomocos), which is titled “A Dynamic General Equilibrium Model to Analyse Financial Stability”, aims to refine and improve existing DSGE models in two ways. First, it incorporates hitherto neglected components such as endogenous default, money via cash-in-advance constraints and heterogeneous banking sectors. Thus, in contrast to the New Keynesian approach, here it is liquidity and default that are the driving forces behind our results. Second, in focusing on both monetary policy and fiscal policy, it elucidates how interactions between the two policy arenas affect macroeconomic fluctuations, particularly in regard to financial stability. Through these refinements, we put forward the policy response necessary to achieve a stable financial system using a calibrated DSGE model. Chapter Three, entitled “Monetary Policy in a Time of Natural Disaster”, investigates the appropriate monetary policy response to natural disasters in the DSGE framework. I develop a realistic model for financial turmoil by evaluating the impact of natural disasters on credit markets by including financial frictions such as endogenous default and liquidity constraints. I show that the standard Taylor rule (1993) response in models with money and default is to increase the nominal interest rate after a disaster shock. However, in fact an inflation-targeting policy (i.e. monetary contraction) is not compatible with mitigating financial fragility in the highly indebted economy with near-zero interest rate, and arguably the `Taylor Principle' does not hold in such as economy (e.g. Japan in 2011). Nevertheless, expansionary monetary policy induces a debt overhang even further. Chapter Four, “Collateral, Default and Asset Prices”, uses a DSGE framework to put forward a model of how agents adjust their asset holdings in response to deflationary shocks. By introducing collateral constraints in the default decision, I capture some original features of the early debt-deflation literature, such as distress selling and instability. The estimated model successfully delivers a procyclical feedback loop for the default channel, which consists of foreclosure, high borrowing costs, inefficient capital allocation, and a further decrease in the output level. I investigated recessionary shocks inducing deflation in commodity and/or asset prices for monetary policy experiments. This, therefore, underlines the importance of monetary policy in restoring financial stability during a deflationary period.

This doctorate explores key aspects of the economics of housing by examining Ireland's housing market bubble of the early 2000s. For earlier chapters, the main source material is a previously unused dataset of almost two million property listings, covering the entire country from 2006 until 2012, maintained by property website daft.ie. An initial chapter outlines stylised facts of Ireland's housing market 2007-2012, including a greater spread of prices over property size in the crash but a narrower spread of rents. In contrast, the geographical spread of prices and rents was largely unchanged. The spread of rents was constrained relative to the spread of prices, suggesting either renter search thresholds or buyer "lock-in" effects. To examine which was at work, the daft.ie dataset is combined with information on a range of amenities, including landscape, transport, education, social capital and market depth. Overall, there is clear evidence that the rent effects of a range of amenities are smaller than the price effects. There is limited evidence of procyclical amenity pricing, which would indicate "lock-in" effects, with the analysis suggesting instead countercyclical pricing, or "property ladder" effects during the bubble. Results from these analyses are based on listed price and rents, rather than transaction prices. The relationship between the two is examined in a separate chapter, using an additional Central Bank of Ireland dataset on mortgages. The spread between list and sale prices gap that exists between the two is decomposed into four parts, a selection spread, a matching spread, a counteroffer spread and a drawdown spread. A selection spread of up to 10% emerged in the Irish housing market after 2009, while the counteroffer spread was positive before 2009 but negative for much of the period 2009-2011. The final chapter uses both inverted-demand and price-rent ratio methods to examine the long-run determinants of house prices in Ireland from 1980 on. In addition to careful treatment of standard fundamentals, it includes a measure of credit conditions as well as the ratio of persons to households, both contributions to the literature. The resulting inverted demand error-correction model shows a clear and stable long-run relationship, which is largely preserved when cointegration between series is explored. Similarly, a model of the price-rent ratio from 2000 shows clear error-correction properties. Together, they suggest that while a range of factors drove Irish house prices 1995-2001, credit conditions were largely responsible for the subsequent increase.

This thesis contributes to the empirical literature on how firms meet exceptional financing needs in relation to “investment spikes” or years with unusually large investment activities. In the earlier part of the thesis, I show that the financing of investment during an investment spike is very different from that at other times. I have done this using data for publicly traded US firms over the period 1988 to 2007 and a filtering procedure suggested by Bond et al. (2006). Specifically, external finance, in particular debt finance, is very important in financing investment in years categorized as investment spikes, confirming the findings of Mayer and Sussman (2005). In addition, it has been found that firms with smaller size, lower profitability, more future growth opportunities, fewer tangible assets and more R&D spending tend to use more equity finance in relation to large investment requirements. I also propose the use of the Markov-switching filter to identify investment spikes. In implementing the Markov-switching filter, I apply a first-order two-state Markov-switching mean model to the investment rates de-trended using Hodrick and Prescott's (1997) filter. A Gibbs-sampling procedure is used to produce the marginal posterior distributions of unobserved state variables and model parameters. Among other advantages, this filter allows us to identify multi-year investment spikes. I show that two-year investment spikes identified by the Markov-switching filter are financed quite similarly to single-year investment spikes and that main findings are robust to calendar-time-dependent clustering of investment spikes generated by macroeconomic shocks. In the later part of the thesis, I find there is a positive effect of share liquidity on the propensity to raise debt finance. Using a sample of firm-year observations identified as investment spikes, I find that firms with more liquid shares tend to rely more heavily on debt to finance investment spikes. This result is robust to a control for the effects of firm size and other firm characteristics, the use of various leverage measures, and the use of a whole sample with investment spike characteristics. Another important finding is that firms with more liquid shares tend to have higher target leverage ratios. One interpretation of these results is that information spillovers from the presence of more informative share prices allow firms with more liquid shares to borrow on more favourable terms in normal times, as well as to obtain additional debt finance at lower costs when taking advantage of unusually large investment opportunities.

This thesis consists of three papers that make independendet contributions to the field of financial economics. As such, the papers, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, and Chapter 4, can be read independently of each other. In Chapter 2, we construct a simple measure of the aggregate illiquidity of hedge fund portfolios, and show that it has strong in- and out-of-sample forecasting power for 72 portfolios of international equities, U.S. corporate bonds, and currencies, over the 1994 to 2011 period. The forecasting ability of hedge fund illiquidity for asset returns is, in most cases, greater than, and provides independent information relative to, well-known predictive variables for each of these asset classes. We construct a simple equilibrium model to rationalise our findings and empirically verify auxiliary predictions of the model. In Chapter 3, I analyse the risk-shifting of hedge funds. Since the information on hedge fund holdings is very restricted, researchers have used the variance of returns as a proxy for risk. I propose a new method for measuring the time-varying variance. I use this method to investigate whether equity long-short hedge funds engage in risk-shifting driven by their past performance relative to their peers. I find that hedge funds which have strongly underperformed or outperformed their peers in recent months increase their exposure to the core strategy, i.e. the equity long-short strategy, and to non-core strategies. The risk shifting is mitigated for hedge funds with long redemption periods. Chapter 4 contributes to the equity premium prediction literature. I improve the forecast performance of typical single variable predictive regressions used in the equity premium prediction literature through Bayesian priors derived from consumption-based asset pricing models. To implement these model-based priors, I develop a Bayesian procedure which is rooted in the macroeconometrics literature. I find that the model-based priors can increase the explanatory power, measured by the out-of-sample R², of the single variable predictive regressions by several percentage points.

The construct social impact has been shaping debates and supporting decision making in many segments of society. From research agendas in academia to the missions of corporations, social impact is easily presented as one of the centers of concern. Despite all this relevance, little is known about social impact\'s conceptual and paradigmatic approaches that frame the social impact academic research agenda and, similarly, the meaning-making processes that lead academics and practitioners\' understanding of social impact. This thesis fills this gap in three parts: first, by characterizing the academic research agenda on social impact over the years and building a snapshot of its paradigmatic orientation; second, by studying the academic discourse to understand the academic meaning-making processes of the social impact concept; third, by analyzing the discourse of practitioners from the Brazilian social finance ecosystem to unveil regularities and differences on their processes of signification of social impact and how these meanings affect their practices. To characterize the academic research agenda on social impact, I use bibliometric techniques and structured literature review. The contributions of this characterization are both the methodology applied and discussions on how social impact studies can advance. I show that research on social impact is rapidly expanding and integrate insights from environmental, social and economic related areas. Besides its interdisciplinary trait, the social impact research is mostly of positivist nature, especially interested in assessment. These results inform how social impact research can advance and proposes more subjective inquiries to complement the positivist studies, as more comprehensive approaches increase the potential for integrating scientific knowledge into decision making. To address the need for interpretative studies about social impact, I analyze the discourse of academic literature on social impact. To this end, I apply the social constructivist lenses and the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD). The analysis shows that, at least, three different classifications of social impact emerge from the academic discursive construction: 1) social impact as a dynamic force; 2) social impact as a side-effect of development; and 3) social impact as a performance metric. Besides some expected differences across different research fields, I also observe regularities: social impact is perceived as measurable, multifaceted and interaction-dependent. Finally, these uncovered regularities, particularly in works related to social entrepreneurship that construct social impact as a metric of performance, puts social impact as the key concept that connects the actors in these scenarios. Thus, I also apply social constructivist lenses and SKAD to gain insights on the construction of social impact by Brazilian impact investors and social entrepreneurs. In summary, I find that differences in the meaning-making process of social impact influence the way in which social problems are understood, as well as the designing of solutions and, consequently, the metrics to assess such solutions. Also, I observe how different meaning-makings of social impact shape investor-investee relationships. This thesis concludes with guidelines on how future academic research, social impact investors and social entrepreneurs can benefit from the important aspects uncovered through the analysis of their discourses. / O construto impacto social tem moldado os debates e apoiando a tomada de decisões em muitos segmentos da sociedade. Desde agendas de pesquisa acadêmica até às missões das corporações, impacto social é colocado como um dos centros de interesse. Apesar da relevância, pouco se conhece sobre as abordagens conceituais e paradigmáticas da agenda de pesquisas acadêmicas sobre o tema impacto social, ou como sobre como acadêmicos e profissionais constroem diferentes entendimentos de impacto social. Esta tese preenche essa lacuna em três estágios: primeiro, caracterizando a agenda de pesquisa acadêmica sobre o impacto social ao longo dos anos e construindo um retrato de sua orientação paradigmática; segundo, estudando o discurso acadêmico para compreender como a comunidade acadêmica constrói significados de impacto social; terceiro, analisando o discurso de atores do ecossistema brasileiro de finanças sociais para desvelar seus processos de significação do termo impacto social, bem como os efeitos desses significados em suas práticas. Para caracterizar a agenda de pesquisa acadêmica sobre impacto social, eu utilizo técnicas bibliométricas e revisão estruturada da literatura. Eu mostro que a pesquisa sobre impacto social está se expandindo rapidamente e integra contribuições de diferentes áreas de pesquisa. Além de seu traço interdisciplinar, a pesquisa de impacto social é majoritariamente de natureza positivista, especialmente interessada em avaliação. Esses resultados informam como a pesquisa de impacto social pode avançar e propõe lentes de pesquisa mais interpretativas para complementar os estudos positivistas e aumentar o potencial de integração do conhecimento científico na tomada de decisão. Como um primeiro passo para preencher a lacuna de estudos interpretativos sobre impacto social, eu analiso o discurso da literatura acadêmica sobre impacto social. Para tanto, aplico as lentes do construtivismo social e da Sociologia do Conhecimento Aplicada do Discurso (SKAD). A análise mostra que, pelo menos, três classificações diferentes de impacto social emergem da construção discursiva acadêmica: 1) o impacto social como uma força dinâmica; 2) impacto social como efeito colateral do desenvolvimento; e 3) impacto social como uma métrica de desempenho. Além de algumas diferenças esperadas em diferentes campos de pesquisa, também observo regularidades: o impacto social é percebido como mensurável, multifacetado e dependente de interação entre agentes. Finalmente, essas regularidades descobertas, particularmente em trabalhos relacionados ao empreendedorismo social que constroem o impacto social como uma métrica de desempenho, colocam o impacto social como o conceito-chave que conecta os atores nesse cenário. Assim, eu também aplico as lentes do construtivismo social e SKAD para entender como se dá a construção do impacto social por investidores de impacto e empreendedores sociais brasileiros. Em resumo, percebo que as diferenças no processo de construção de significado de impacto social influenciam a maneira como os problemas sociais são compreendidos, bem como a concepção de soluções e, consequentemente, as métricas para avaliar tais soluções. Além disso, observo como os diferentes significados do impacto social modelam as relações entre investidor e investido. Esta tese conclui com orientações sobre como futuros pesquisadores, investidores de impacto social e empreendedores sociais podem se beneficiar dos aspectos descobertos através da análise de seus discursos.

Hedge fund activism announcements are associated with positive market reactions, and they introduce information asymmetry between insiders and outside investors. Target firm insiders have superior information about the campaign and play an important role in the campaign negotiation. This study examines insiders’ behavior as information asymmetry rises following the campaign announcement. Insiders increase trading in their own firms in response to the campaign announcement. These post-announcement insider trades have additional return predictability than insider trades in other times. Post-announcement insider buys predict higher probabilities of achieving successful campaign outcomes including management turnovers, increases in payout, and corporate restructurings, and higher value of these outcomes. I also find evidence that insiders use campaign resistance and trading interactively to achieve higher wealth gain.