Abstract This thesis is composed of three models that imply the impact of managers¡¦ characteristics on investment under asymmetric information. The first one regards insider as managers and formulates a model to explain the positive relationship between cash flow and capital expenditure of a firm, and tries to synthesize the ¡§asymmetric information hypothesis¡¨(Myers and Majluf, 1984) and the ¡§free cash flow hypothesis¡¨(Jensen, 1986) by insider ownership. The finding demonstrates that in instances with low percentage of insider ownership, the free cash flow hypothesis will better explain the positive relationship between cash flow and capital expenditure and will have the phenomenon of over-investment. On the other hand, when the percentage of insider ownership is high, the asymmetric information hypothesis is better suited to explain this relationship and will have the phenomenon of the under-investment. The second one formulates a model to synthesize the ¡§reputation effect¡¨ and ¡§asymmetric information hypothesis¡¨ through considering the outsider investors¡¦ evaluation of the firms in terms of firms¡¦ reputation and firms¡¦ private information. This study concludes that the good type firms with low reputation will show the behavior of under-investment and the bad type firms with high reputation will have the phenomenon of over-investment. Moreover, the model demonstrates that both the phenomena of under-investment and of over-investment are caused by the conflict between the firms and the outsider investors. At last, this study implies that the effect of reputation has an influence on the choice of financial tools for the good type firms but does not have an influence on that of the bad ones. This study presents a general model to explain two types of investment inefficiency under the effect of reputation in a reasonable mode. The last one formulates a model to synthesize the ¡§bias effect¡¨ and ¡§reputation effect¡¨ through considering the fact that the CEO in the interest of firm is in favor of a certain project and that junior managers concern their reputation. This study concludes that the CEO¡¦s bias will influence the project that the managers suggest and does not necessarily lead to the direction of bias. The untalented managers will be affected more seriously than talented managers. Moreover, the model combines ¡§bias effect¡¨ with ¡§asymmetric information hypothesis¡¨ and implies that the bias can alleviate the problem of under-investment under certain circumstances. This finding shows that the bias is not always a negative factor of investment efficiency.

The dividend payout policy is one of the most debated topics within corporate finance and some academics have called the company’s dividend payout policy an unsolved puzzle. Even though an extensive amount of research regarding dividends has been conducted, there is no uniform answer to the question: what are the determinants of the companies’ dividend payout ratios? We therefore decided to conduct a study regarding the determinants of the companies’ dividend payout ratios on large and medium cap on Stockholm stock exchange. The purpose of the study is to determine if there is a relationship between a number of company selected factors and the companies’ dividend payout ratios. A second purpose is to determine whether there are any differences between large and medium caps regarding the impact of the company selected factors. We therefore reviewed previous studies and dividend theories in order to conclude which factors that potentially could have an impact on the companies’ dividend payout ratios. Based on the literature, we decided to test the relationship between the dividend payout ratio and six company selected factors: free cash flow, growth, leverage, profit, risk and size. The data used in the research are secondary data collected during a time period of five years, between 2006 and 2010. The study follows a quantitative research method with a deductive approach and we have based the study on four dividend theories: the dividend irrelevance theory, the bird in hand theory, the signaling theory and the agency theory. In order to determine whether there is a relationship between the companies selected factors and the dividend payout ratio we conducted both an Ordinary least square (OLS) and a Tobit regression. Multicollinearity tests were also conducted in order to ascertain that no multicollinearity affected the results of the study. The results indicate that some of the company selected factors have an impact on the companies’ dividend payout ratios and there are some differences between large and medium caps. The dividend payout ratios of large caps have a significant relationship to free cash flow, growth and risk. While the dividend payout ratios of medium caps have a significant relationship to free cash flow, leverage, risk and size.

This research is aimed to discover and test the potential influencing factors on stock buybacks for Chinese listed companies. 11 new influencing factors hypotheses are developed based on several prevailing hypotheses, such as the information signaling hypothesis, the free cash flow hypothesis, the optimal leverage hypothesis and the takeover deterrence hypothesis. The research will test 11 factors that potentially influence listed companies to buy back stocks. The regression and independent variables will be adjusted. The testing sample is from all the companies listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange that had stock buyback transactions in 2019. Suggestions will be given according to the regression result regarding the potential influencing factors on stock buybacks for Chinese listed companies in 2019. Due to different influencing factors on stock buybacks, different operating methods may have different effects to achieve different goals. Therefore, the determinants of buyback methods in practice will be discussed. The advantages and disadvantages will be discussed from different perspectives, which can be very useful suggestions in stock buyback practice. / Business Administration/Finance

庫藏股制度於國外已經行之有年，特別是美國，早在1960年代即有庫藏股交易。我國上市上櫃股票可合法買回自己公司股票制度始於2000年所通過的上市上櫃公司買回本公司股份辦法，除了希望藉以提振東南亞金融危機中不振的股市表現，也賦予企業多一種能向投資人傳遞訊息的管道。本研究基於股票買回的各項假說，希望探究公司股票買回宣告的動機還有事件宣告後對於公司股價的影響效果，最後並檢視公司的宣告決策是否會受到前次購回宣告的表現所影響。 在假說驗證方面，以2000至2004年上市公司832家、上櫃公司236家曾經宣告買回自家股票的公司為研究樣本，輔以選出與買回樣本同時間的相同數量「未買回樣本」，透過1-way ANOVA測試與鑑別分析探討影響公司宣告股票買回的因素符合哪些假說的推論結果。此外，依據各項假說，進ㄧ步利用1-way ANOVA測試和複迴歸分析找出與公司事件宣告後股價異常報酬率之間的關係，接著以1-way ANOVA檢視最後一部份研究主題。經由上述的實證分析，本研究獲得以下主要結論： 1.公司買回自家的股票平均而言對於股價有正面的影響效果。 2.以上市公司而言，影響公司宣告股票買回的假說包括了：自由現金流量假說、個人所得稅節稅假說與財務槓桿假說。以上櫃公司而言則包括：自由現金流量假說、個人所得稅節稅假說與資訊信號假說。 3.以上市公司而言，股票買回宣告後，股價的正向異常報酬與：自由現金流量假說、管理者的誘因假說呈現相關關係。上櫃公司則包括：自由現金流量假說。 4.本次是否再度宣告股票買回會受前次買回的正向累積異常報酬率所影響。 / Stock price reactions on stock repurchase announcements among publicly traded corporations have been widely studied over 40 years in United States. Several hypothesizes were established and provide logical reasons for why corporations buy back their own stocks. References show large proportion of positive effect on post-announcement stock price after stock repurchase announcements from empirical researches. It is since 2000 that corporations are allowed to repurchase their own stocks legally in Taiwan. Although many efforts were put in surveying the post-announcement stock price reactions, few focused on examining how corporations’ repurchase decision would be influenced by different hypothesizes. Moreover, whether or not previous repurchase outcome may affect future repurchase judgments met contradict conclusion from recent studies. This research aims on exploring the two main topics which form 7 hypothesize. Data collecting from Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) database, Commercial Times and Economic Daily News contains publicly traded corporations had ever made stock repurchase announcement except financial and government institutions. The period of the study was from Aug. 6, 2000 to Jul. 31, 2004 and total number of announced corporations included was 832 listed on the Taiwan Security Exchange with 236 listed on the OTC separately. Hypothesis 1 to 6 were tested both from individual model using 1-way ANOVA Analysis and integrated model using Discriminate Analysis on Hypothesis 1 to 5, Event Study Analysis on Hypothesis 6. Hypothesis 7 was also verified with 1-way ANOVA Analysis. The empirical results show supports in several hypothesize which reflect corporations did concern free cash flow amount, leverage level, stock underpriced and dividend payout level issues when making repurchase announcement. The stock price after announcement has certain degree of moving correlation toward the same direction as free cash flow level and managerial stockholding level. Finally, previous repurchase outcome was found holding opposite relation with future repurchase judgments.