The paper analyzes the impact of financial globalization on corporate governance systems. While shareholder systems are relatively unaffected by globalization pressures, the burden of adjustment rests primarily on stakeholder systems, owing to their dominant non-market forms of coordination. Convergence theory therefore expects a transformation of stakeholder systems towards shareholder systems, whereas the ‘hybridization thesis’ argues for a combination of elements from shareholder and stakeholder systems as a result of globalization. The ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ approach expects stability in corporate governance systems and a continuation of differences between them.

I denna uppsats diskuteras sambandet mellan risk, marknadseffektivitet och volatilitet. En studie görs för att se om volatiliteten (kursrörligheten) har ökat i enskilda aktier under tidsperioden 1988-1999. Vidare behandlas vilka faktorer som kan ge upphov till volatilitetsförändringar, vilka konsekvenser en förändrad volatilitet får för olika typer av investerare samt om utvecklingen är förenlig med EMH (den effektiva marknadshypotesen).Studier av volatilitet är intressanta p g a den risk som uppstår för olika marknadsaktörer vid en ökad volatilitet. Uppstår felvärderingar på aktiemarknaden finns även risk för att kapital fördelas på ett sätt som inte är optimalt. I stora drag kan man definiera begreppet volatilitet som ett mått på hur stor osäkerheten är inför den framtida kursutvecklingen för en aktie. Volatilitet är att betrakta som kortsiktiga rörelser i finansiella priser under loppet av en dag eller från en dag till en annan, men begreppet används också / In this paper the relation between risk, market efficiency and volatility is being discussed. A study has been made to see if there has been any change in the volatility for individual stocks during the time period 1988-1999. Further, the factors that contribute to changes in the volatility have been examined and also which the consequences are for various types of investors and whether the developement is consistent with the efficient market hypothesis. The study of volatility is interesting because of the risk that an increased volatility entails for the investors. When mispricing occurs in the stockmarket there is also a risk for a non-optimal allocation of capital. Roughly speaking the definition of volatility is how large the uncertainty is about the future return from an individual stock. Volatility is considered to be short time period movements in financial prices within a day or from one day to another but is also used as a mesaure to describe price

Esta tesis analiza temas de distribución de la renta y desarrollo económico en economías caracterizadas por imperfecciones en el mercado de capitales.El primer capitulo estudia temas de distribución de la renta. La mayoría de la literatura en ese campo a sido desarrollada bajo el supuesto que IMC (esto es imperfecciones en el mercado de capitales) son exógenas. La teoría convencional es que es muy poco probable que los individuos mas pobres puedan invertir porque tomar dinero a préstamo es muy caro en presencia de asimetrías informativas. Consecuentemente, los individuos más pobres no invertirán y sus futuras generaciones permanecerán pobres. Basado en esta línea de pensamiento esta literatura concluye que IMC exógenas producen mayor desigualdad y menor movilidad intergeneracional. Contrariamente as estos análisis este artículo argumenta que cuando las IMC se endogenizan la movilidad intergeneracional aumentará entre los pobres e inteligentes individuos. En mi modelo existe un problema de selección adversa entre el prestamista y el prestatario, pues los bancos no saben la habilidad del prestatario. En este contexto los bancos ofrecen un menú de contratos que satisface la condición de auto-selección. En equilibrio bancos diferencian entre agentes forzando a los más inteligentes a invertir en educación más de lo óptimo. De esta forma el agente menos inteligente no se hace pasar por el agente más inteligente. Estos últimos obtienen más educación de la que ellos desean, aumentando movilidad intergeneracional y la acumulación de capital humano, que son mayores que en el mundo con información perfecta.Los resultados más importantes de este paper son los siguientes: cuando se endogenizan las imperfecciones del mercado de capitales obtenemos que IMC aumentan movilidad intergeneracional y aumenta el número de gente educados en el estado estacionario. Al estudiar desigualdad en renta, yo encuentro que los resultados son ambiguos. Por un lado el número de gente con rentas muy bajas ha disminuido. Por otro lado la clase media de prestatarios inteligentes tienen una renta menor.Una de las cuestiones más importantes que se hacen los economistas es porqué países pobres usan sus recursos de forma ineficiente. En el segundo capítulo nosotros (Andrés Erosa y yo) proponemos una teoría donde IMC son el origen de las diferencias en TFP entre países. En nuestra teoría los empresarios tienen información privada sobre la productividad de su tecnología. Nosotros estudiamos cómo el contrato, descrito como la habilidad de hacer respetar el contrato, afecta la provisión de incentivos, y por tanto, y de repartir los recursos entre los empresarios. Nosotros estudiamos un modelo de crecimiento donde los empresarios están dotados de una tecnología para producir un bien intermedio que es el input de la producción final de bienes. Los empresarios necesitan financiación externa para producir. Esta financiación externa está limitada por dos problemas: Primero, la productividad no es observable para los prestamistas. Segundo, los empresarios pueden pagar, como máximo, una fracción de la producción. Asumimos que los países difieren en su capacidad de hacer respetar los contratos. Demostramos que, en la presencia de asimetrías de información, países con baja capacidad de hacer respetar los contratos utilizan tecnologías ineficientes en equilibrio y es caracterizada por diferencias en productividad entre países. Nuestra teoría sugiere que los empresarios tienen intereses en mantener en status quo con baja capacidad de hacer cumplir los contratos y esto hace posible que los empresarios extraigan rentas de los servicios que contratan. Nuestra teoría tiene implicaciones sobre la distribución de los recursos entre sectores. En fin nuestra teoría implica que la tasa de impuestos sobre la renta puede ser mala para la actividad económica sobre todo cuando los mercados de capitales son imperfectos. / This dissertation analyzes income distribution and economic development issues in macroeconomies with financial frictions. Chapter 1 focuses on income distribution issues. Most of the existing literature in this area has been developed under the assumption that CMI are exogenous. Their conventional view is that since becoming borrower is expensive under high imperfections in the capital markets, poor agents are less likely to make investment decisions. As a consequence their future generations will remain poor. Based on this thought these branch of the literature conclude that exogenous CMI lead to higher inequality and lower mobility. In contrast to these analyses this paper argues that when we endogenize CMI, intergenerational mobility may be promoted among poor and talented agents. In my model there is an adverse selection problem between borrowers and banks, since banks cannot identify borrowers' ability. In this context banks offer a menu of contracts that satisfy the self-selection mechanism. In equilibrium banks differentiate between agents by forcing talented borrowers to make an investment in human capital larger than they would in the first best world. In this way low ability individuals do not pose as high ability ones. Talented children from poor families get educated even more than they wish, so that both income mobility and human capital accumulation are larger than in the first best world. The major results of this paper might be summarized as follows: when we endogenize imperfections in the capital market we obtain that CMI promotes intergenerational mobility and increases the number of educated people in the steady state. When we study inequality of wealth, we find that there are opposite effects making inequality unambiguos. On the one hand there is a small number of people in the lower bound of the wealth distribution. On the other hand the middle class of clever borrowers have a lower wealth. One of the most important research questions faced by economist is why poor countries use productive resources inefficiently. In the second chapter of the thesis we propose a theory where capital market imperfections are at the origin of cross-country TFP differences. In our theory entrepreneurs have private information about the multifactor productivity of their technology. We study how the contracting environment, as described by the ability to enforce contracts, affects the provision of incentives and, thus, resource allocation to and across entrepreneurs. We develop a growth model where entrepreneurs are endowed with a technology to produce an intermediate good that is an input in the production of final goods. Entrepreneurs need external funds in order to operate their technology. External financing is complicated by two problems: First, the productivity of the entrepreneurial technology can not be observed by lenders. Second, entrepreneurs can commit to pay, at most, a fraction of the output. We assume that countries differ in the ability to enforce loans contracts. We show that, in the presence of asymmetric information, countries with low enforcement use inefficient technologies in equilibrium and are characterized by differences in productivity across industries. Our theory also suggests that entrepreneurs have a vested interest in maintaining a status quo with low enforcement since it allows them to extract rents from the factor services they hire. Our theory has implications for the allocation of resources across industries that differ in their needs of external funds and provide some insights into why poor countries face large differences in productivity across sectors. Our theory also implies that income taxation can be more detrimental for economic activity when capital markets are imperfect.

Technological innovation is a key process for the modern enterprise to gain competitiveness. Technological innovation let United States companies become the leader of the world, and the well developed capital market is the source to promote technological innovation. Science and Technology is the goal of Japan. Japan learns from technology and innovation to become a technological power. But the financial structure is different from United States and Japan. The difference for supporting technological innovation is the subject of this research. The study found that stock market is the most important funding outside the banking system. The mature stock markets in the United States gave birth to the successful technological innovation of the modern enterprise. Whether it the patent application and the export of new products and technologies are the highest in the world. The stock market of Japan is not develop enough, it can¡¦t give enough support to technological innovation. But the tight relation between the companies and banks make up for the immaturity of the stock market. And the relation promotes the enterprises to obtain the outstanding achievements in technological innovation. Overall, the mature stock markets of United States support the development of technological innovation, and achieve a higher degree of technological innovation.

<p>I denna uppsats diskuteras sambandet mellan risk, marknadseffektivitet och volatilitet. En studie görs för att se om volatiliteten (kursrörligheten) har ökat i enskilda aktier under tidsperioden 1988-1999. Vidare behandlas vilka faktorer som kan ge upphov till volatilitetsförändringar, vilka konsekvenser en förändrad volatilitet får för olika typer av investerare samt om utvecklingen är förenlig med EMH (den effektiva marknadshypotesen).Studier av volatilitet är intressanta p g a den risk som uppstår för olika marknadsaktörer vid en ökad volatilitet. Uppstår felvärderingar på aktiemarknaden finns även risk för att kapital fördelas på ett sätt som inte är optimalt. I stora drag kan man definiera begreppet volatilitet som ett mått på hur stor osäkerheten är inför den framtida kursutvecklingen för en aktie. Volatilitet är att betrakta som kortsiktiga rörelser i finansiella priser under loppet av en dag eller från en dag till en annan, men begreppet används också</p> / <p>In this paper the relation between risk, market efficiency and volatility is being discussed. A study has been made to see if there has been any change in the volatility for individual stocks during the time period 1988-1999. Further, the factors that contribute to changes in the volatility have been examined and also which the consequences are for various types of investors and whether the developement is consistent with the efficient market hypothesis. The study of volatility is interesting because of the risk that an increased volatility entails for the investors. When mispricing occurs in the stockmarket there is also a risk for a non-optimal allocation of capital. Roughly speaking the definition of volatility is how large the uncertainty is about the future return from an individual stock. Volatility is considered to be short time period movements in financial prices within a day or from one day to another but is also used as a mesaure to describe price</p>

Prices in financial markets are primarily driven by the interaction of risk and time. The returns to financial assets over long time horizons are primarily driven by fundamental news regarding their promised cash flows. In contrast, short-run price variation is associated with a large degree of predictable, transient investor trading behavior unrelated to fundamental prospects. The quantity of long-run risk directly affects economic well-being, and its magnitude has varied significantly over the past century. The theoretical model presented here shows some success in quantifying the impact of news about future risks on asset prices. In particular, some investing strategies that appear to offer anomalously large returns are associated with high exposures to future long-run risks. The historical returns to these portfolios are partly a result of investors’ distaste for assets whose worth declines when uncertainty increases. The financial sector is tasked with pricing these risks in a way that properly allocates investment resources. Over the past thirty years, this sector has grown much more rapidly than the economy as a whole. As a result, asset prices appear to be more informative. However, the new information relates to short-term uncertainty, not long-run risk. This type of high-frequency information is unlikely to affect real investment in a way that would benefit broader economic growth.

This dissertation consists of three essays on different attributes of immigrants and remittances over time. Using the recently available three waves of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants in Canada (LSIC), our first essay investigates the relationships between socio-economic characteristics and remittance behaviour of Indian and Chinese immigrants in Canada. After conducting a logistic regression on the likelihood of remitting and an instrumental variable regression of the amount remitted, the study observes significant differences between the remittance behaviour of Chinese and Indian immigrants. While Chinese remittances are mostly affected by age, income, level of education and personal investment in home country, Indian remittances are influenced by marital status, having family members in the host country, and being involved with social/religious organization in the host country. Financial variables play significant roles for both types of immigrants. Using data from the LSIC, our second essay explores the link between health and education among recently arrived immigrants in Canada. The empirical evidence suggests that education has a positive impact on the health of newly arrived immigrants. This relationship remains valid for a few years after arrival. More educated immigrants seem to be better informed and appear to make use of health-related information. If differences in health can be explained using educational inequality then education might directly affect the quality of life. The likelihood of being in better health increases amongst those with higher levels of education. Our third essay examines whether the financial sector of a country plays a significant role in explaining a country’s capacity to take advantage of remittances to influence economic growth. Using data from 1979 to 2011 for the 33 top remittance recipient developing countries and employing the GMM approach, the study observes a positive association between remittances and growth. However, no conclusive evidence on the importance of financial development on remittance-growth nexus could be established. Moreover, remittances have the strongest effect on economic growth under repressed financial regimes. Ensuring that remittance recipients have access to financial intermediaries and promoting financial literacy may increase the positive influence of the financial sector on the relationship between remittances and economic growth.

The implementation of different business models has enabled financial markets to not only create value for their benefits, but it has also helped them contribute to economic growth, as well as fulfil their roles in the society. However, the impacts of technological advancements, cross-border flows and regulations continually introduce new dynamics into the business environments of financial markets and as a result, financial markets are faced with future uncertainties. These have increased the dire need for markets to continue to devise methods that can be adapted to survive and thrive in the economy. Hence, financial markets are focusing on profitability than growth, or ideally profitable growth. As a means to achieve this, financial markets need to continually innovate and re-examine their business models to sustain growth. However financial markets still have to adapt general business model frameworks to design new business models because of the lack of a business model framework that has been designed specifically to meet the needs of financial markets. In the midst of these uncertainties, “business as usual” is not an option for a sustainable future; financial markets need sustainable business models that can be used to future proof their business strategies and create long-term value. This research identifies the need for sustainable business models in financial markets and identifies the lack of a framework for sustainable business models. Hence it aims at developing a business model framework that can be used to develop sustainable business models; with an objective of achieving long-term profitability while only having a minimal long lasting impact on the physical and social environments and to be sufficient enough to compare the business models of financial markets. This research contributes to the knowledge of business models, sustainability, and competition in financial markets.

Esta dissertação busca verificar se existem práticas relacionadas a Gerenciamento de Resultados (a partir das Escolhas Contábeis) que sejam provenientes do impacto da contabilização de derivativos nas instituições bancárias em funcionamento no país sob a supervisão do Bacen, com posição em 1º/12/2008. Uma das inovações deste estudo é que, além da utilização de todos os Bancos na posição considerada, o que perfaz um censo, esta pesquisa possui enfoque com base na Teoria das Escolhas Contábeis. A abordagem desta dissertação é empírico-analítica, a hipótese geral é de que não existe Gerenciamento de Resultados para todas as instituições analisadas e o método utilizado considera a técnica de análise de dados em painel e regressões com variáveis dummy. As classificações para a utilização dessas variáveis compreendem: tamanho dos Bancos (por meio do Ativo Total e também da classificação já existente divulgada trimestralmente pelo Bacen); origem, segregando os Bancos em brasileiros e não brasileiros; níveis diferenciados de Governança Corporativa, em que se distinguem aqueles que são ou não adeptos dos Níveis 1, 2 ou Novo Mercado; e acompanhamento por analistas, em que se separaram as instituições entre aquelas que são ou não acompanhadas por profissionais (as informações foram retiradas do site da Thomson One Analytics). A base de dados estende-se de 2002 a 2008, para 158 Bancos, com 1.044 observações. As evidências apontam que, de modo geral, não foi possível identificar pelas variáveis utilizadas nos modelos, na maioria das situações testadas, Gerenciamento de Resultados, a partir das Escolhas Contábeis, isto é, não há evidência empírica, por essas variáveis, que os Bancos no Brasil, independentemente do tamanho, origem, níveis diferenciados de Governança Corporativa e acompanhamento por analistas, utilizem a contabilização de derivativos como instrumento de Gerenciamento de Resultados. / This dissertation aims at verifying whether there are Earnings Management practices (regarding Accounting Choices) resulting from the impact of accounting for derivatives in Bank institutions available in Brazil, with position on 12/01st/2008, under Brazils Central Bank supervision. One of the innovations of this study is that in addition to the use of all Banks in the mentioned position, which consists of a census, this practice has its focus on Accounting Choice Theory. The approach of this dissertation is an empirical-analytical one, and its general hypothesis is that there is no Earnings Management for all considered institutions. Additionally, the method considers the panel data analysis and regressions with dummy variables. The classification for the use of these variables includes: size (through Total Asset) of the Banks and also another existing classification, which Brazils Central Bank discloses trimestrally; origin, (Brazilians and non-Brazilians Banks); differenced levels of Corporate Governance, which distinguishes among those that are or are not placed on Level 1, 2 or New Market; and accompaniment by analysts, in which institutions are separated among those that are or are not accompanied by those professionals (the information is taken from the Thomson One Analytics website). The data basis ranges from 2002 up to 2008, for 158 Banks, with 1.044 observations. The evidences point out that it was not generally possible to identify, in the models, in the majority of the tested situations, Earnings Management through Accounting Choices, which means that it was not found empirical evidence that Banks in Brazil, regardless of the size, origin, differenced levels of Corporate Governance and accompaniment by analysts, use accounting for derivatives as a tool for Earnings Management.

Abstract This thesis investigates whether stock returns can help forecast macroeconomic activity. Future earnings and dividends and current stock prices should contain information about the future state of firms and the consumption possibilities of consumers. These activities are linked to aggregate economic development and, hence, the stock markets should improve economic forecasting. We review the theoretical points that justify the importance of stock markets in economic forecasting. Recent literature on the stochastic discount factor in asset pricing and the real business cycle models has approached this connection. We try to show that the direction between financial markets and macroeconomy could be from stock markets to real economy. We empirically test the forecasting ability of stock markets with respect to macroeconomy. The unexpected part of stock return can be revealed with economic tracking portfolios (ETP), which are constructed so that the unexpected portion of the portfolio return has the maximum correlation with revisions to expectations of the target variable. ETP's track how investors revise their expectations about relevant macroeconomic variables. The results show that specific stock portfolios track future changes in macroeconomic variables well. In the previous literature, stock returns have been connected to the business cycle. This connection is analysed by explaining stock returns with total factor productivity (TFP) as a factor. TFP is measured by corporate innovation variable, i.e. the change in a firm's gross profit margin unexplained by changes in firm's capital and labour. The TFP variable performs quite nicely in explaining stock returns and it can be related to stock market momentum. Next, the aim is to investigate the forecasting power of stock returns together with the TFP factor. Even though in our results the TFP contains no information relevant for economic forecasting, the stock returns continue to perform well.