This research adds to the growing literature from recent years on innovation finance, innovation systems, and regional economic and innovation policy. Although the role of business has been seen as critical within the regional innovation system, the role of business financing intermediaries has received considerably less attention despite its recognised role as a central actor of the system. This research focuses on an innovation player that seems to have been neglected by scholars to date, namely the venture capital industry. The research examines the role of different types of venture capital, public and private, in fostering innovation at the regional level. In examining this relationship, this thesis empirically analyses the characteristics of 4117 investments deals made to 2359 companies, the innovation outputs of these businesses and the responses to a survey of 50 venture capital professionals. The contribution of this thesis is threefold: First, this thesis investigates whether and how the supply of private sector venture capital and supportive public interventions has changed the availability of venture capital at the regional level. It examines the combination of venture capital in the UK regions by providing a detailed analysis of the extent of venture capital public dependency in each UK region. It also elaborates on the potential implications of the public sectors’s domination in venture capital provision in several UK regions. The regional dimension of the analysis is of special interest as it is the first comprehensive analysis of the source of VC investments (public or private) for each UK region. From a regional perspective, the UK now appears to have two venture capital markets. In London, the South East and, to a lesser extent, the East of England, private sector investors dominate investment activity. This contrasts with the remainder of the UK where the venture capital market is underpinned by extensive public sector involvement. Second, this thesis also investigates the role of venture capital in innovation using patents as a proxy variable for business innovation. In this way, it contributes to the literature by analysing the relation between patenting practices of venture capital backed firms, paying particular attention to two aspects: first, the company’s acquisition of venture finance and progress through the venture capital journey and second, the relationship between patent practices and source of venture capital finance (public or private) in UK regions. The analysis shows a clear relationship between venture capital and patents. Companies with patents are more likely to secure follow up venture capital finance compared with companies without patents. The econometric analysis results also suggest that UK companies with moderate public venture capital support are positively associated with patents while companies with extensive public venture capital support are negatively associated with patents, compared to companies with solely private venture capital support. The final part of the thesis investigates whether the environment in which funds operate may explain observed differences in the ability of these funds to invest in companies with the potential to innovate. It does this by examining the ecology of interaction between venture capital and regional innovation systems. This is the first detailed empirical investigation of the relationship between different types of venture capital (private or public) and other players of the innovation system such as universities incubators, research institutes, and regional authorities. Three important findings emerge from this analysis. First, venture capital public dependence is strongly and significantly associated with higher volumes of interactions with the outside world. The more publicly dependent a fund is, the more it interacts with other players of the innovation system. Second, the role of proximity is still important within the VC industry. Venture capitalists from both the private and the public sector, are more likely to interact with their counterparts from the same region. Third, there is evidence to suggest that operators of publicly backed funds are lacking close connections with their counterparts from the private sectors. This may have implications for their ability to approach and attract private heavy weighted venture capital funds and limited partners that can provide follow on investments or raise further funding for the fund. Although publicly backed venture capitalists interact to a greater extent than the private counterparts, they experience less success (measured as financial performance of the fund or performance of their portfolio companies). It is widely acknowledged that interactions between venture capitalists and other players promotes tacit knowledge, but the results of this thesis suggests that interaction on its own is not enough to provoke success. Overall, the findings of this research suggests that the distinction between the two venture capital markets in the UK, publicly or privately driven, is not limited to the volume or type of venture capital activity but also relates to the ecology of interactions between venture capitalists and other players of the regional innovation system. Since publicly backed funds do not promote innovation to the same extent that private funds do when they invest alone, UK regions that are heavily dependent on public investments may not be able to receive the benefits of a functional venture capital industry. However, regions in which public venture capital funds work closely with private funds, demonstrate a relatively higher volume of venture capital backed companies with the potential to innovate. From a policy perspective, this finding suggests that from an innovation point of view, free public standing investments should be minimised while co-investments between publicly backed and private venture capital funds should be further encouraged.

This thesis investigates nominal frictions in price setting behaviour from both microe-conometric and macroeconometric perspectives. Chapter I and II use the unpublished retailer-level and producer-level microdata underlying CPI and PPI in the UK statisti-cal authority to study empirical price rigidity and price setting mechanisms. Based on the conventional frequency-based method, little rigidity is found since the implied price duration is less than half a year. However, this method is shown to significantly underestimate the true duration due to oversampling of short price spells. Alternative-ly, a trajectory-based cross-sectional approach is adopted, giving an unbiased and ro-bust estimate for average duration over 9 months (retailer price) and 15 months (pro-ducer price). That is to say, producer price has higher degree of rigidity than retailer price if cross-sectional approach is used. Both time-dependent and state-dependent features exist in price setting. In particular for retailer price, results also suggest con-spicuous heterogeneities in price rigidity across sectors and shop types, but weak dif-ference across regions and time. The overall hazard function of price change can be decomposed into a decreasing component from goods sectors and a 4-month cyclical component from services sectors. The empirical findings in the microdata not only contribute to the microdata literature on price setting behaviour, but also make possible the calibrations of macroeconomic DSGE model with heterogeneous price setting. Hence, based on the microdata find-ings in Chapter I and II, Chapter III uses Classical maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference to evaluate and estimate DSGE models with various price setting mecha-nisms. A vital problem with homogeneous price setting models is that they cannot generate enough persistence while keeping calibration of average price rigidity con-sistent with microdata evidence. In contrast, this ―persistence puzzle‖ is successfully resolved by heterogeneous price setting models, which greatly improve the dynamic performance of macroeconomic models.

The thesis presents my work on the modelling, explanation and prediction of credit risk through three channels: (binary) default indicator, (ordinal) credit ratings and (continuous) CDS spreads.

The 2007-2008 global financial turmoil is the most severe crisis since the Great Depression. Starting with the sub-prime defaults in the United States, it quickly spills over into other markets leading to the collapses of many financial institutions, worldwide banks bailouts, downturns in asset prices and also to sovereign debt crises. The aim of this thesis is to empirically investigate the repercussions of this financial crisis on interbank market and sovereign risk. In Chapter one, we empirically explore the effect of bank lending relationships in the interbank market. We use data from the e-MID market that represents the only transparent electronic platform in Europe and the United States, unaffected by search costs and other actions. We show that stable relationships exist and that they play a significant role during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Trading with preferred counterparts is associated with more favorable rates for both lenders and borrowers, and carries larger trading volumes. The results point to a peer monitoring role of relationship lending, which contributes, at a time of financial distress, to a smooth liquidity redistribution among banks. Relationship lending thus plays an important positive role for financial stability. Chapter two investigates the role of banks' network centrality in the interbank market on their funding rates. Specifically we analyze transaction data from the e-MID market, over the 2006-2009 period, which encompasses the global financial crisis. We show that interbank spreads are significantly affected by both local and global measures of connectedness. The effects of network centrality increased as the financial crisis evolved. Local measures show that having more links increases borrowing costs for borrowers and reduces premia for lenders. For global network centrality, borrowers receive a significant discount if they increase their intermediation activity and become more central, while lenders pay in general a premium (i.e. receive lower rates) for centrality. This provides evidence of the `too-interconnected-to-fail' hypothesis. Chapter three draws attention to the effect of monetary policies and international linkages on European countries sovereign risks. Using a Global VAR method that allows for interdependencies across individual variables within and across units, we model government bond credit default swaps (CDS) relative to Germany by domestic, global, monetary and weighted foreign variables, where weights are calculated based on the countries' fiscal positions. We find evidence of positive correlation between sovereign bond CDS and risk aversion for almost all countries in the eurozone. When the European Central Bank (ECB) increases the refinancing rate, we observe an increase in risk of sovereign bonds of all countries due to negative environment in Euro area. A decline in money aggregate (M3) leads to all countries becoming more fragile, hence increasing sovereign risk. The shocks that stem from monetary policy changes (i.e. an increase in ECB refinancing rate) causes a rise in sovereign risk due to sensitivity to crisis and uncertainty in Euro area. In contrast, monetary policies have an opposite impact on Greece due to its relative worse performance.

The primary aim of this dissertation is to research the private banking consumer perception and to analyse the impact acquisition in private banking has or might have on private banking consumer perception. A literature review discovered that existing research in the field of private banking consumer perception is relatively rare and no studies were discovered that dealt with private banking consumer perception and, in particular, the influence of an acquisition. In addition to that, private banking consumer perception is not defined by any literature. Hence, there is a gap in existing literature and the literature review resulted in research questions which were analysed and discussed by gathering primary data. A holistic case study based on the Swiss and German private banking market was used to gather primary data. This type of case study offers the researcher a holistic view(Patton, 1990) on the present subject as it considers all parties which have an influence on the topic under investigation. The first phase of the case study consisted of nonparticipant observation at a finance fair. Private banking consumers, relationship managers and consultants were observed. In the next phase semi-structured interviews were undertaken with relationship managers, banking managers, private banking clients and lawyers. Both phases were qualitative in its nature. Based on the findings it was established that private banking consumers have expectations on private banking. If the private banking service provider is able to fulfil or exceed these expectations the client perceives this as "satisfaction". Determinants of private banking consumer perception were elicited. These determinants are defined as categories and sub-categories of different criteria used by the consumer to evaluate a perceived service. Apart from that, the research findings revealed that acquisition can influence all private banking consumer perception determinants depending on the context of the acquisition. The independent advice of private banks as well as retaining the relationship manager was found to be of primary concern to the clients during an acquisition process. A model of private banking consumer perception was developed from the primary data results. With the knowledge gained from this research private banks are better able to understand bank consumers’ expectations and perceptions. This contributes to higher levels of competitiveness for banks as customers’ needs can be better met, and client movements during an acquisition process reduced.

Selling stock to the general public is one important method by which firms are able to raise new equity capital. If the firm sells stock for the first time to the general public, it is called an initial public offering (IPO). Subsequent to the IPO, firms may seek to raise further equity capital by offering to sell new shares through a seasoned equity offering (SEO). In the UK, most young/small firms initially raise equity capital from a small number of investors through private placements. If a firm prospers and needs additional equity capital, it may choose at some point to go public by selling stock through an IPO. By issuing publicly traded equity, the firm establishes both a market value for the firm and a market for its common stock. There have been many IPO studies that record the so-called “Underpricing anomaly” as a primary stylised fact of IPOs. The underpricing refers to the significance increase of the IPO market price over the first few days after the initial listing. This fact suggests that the IPO pricing is not simple very few information about the issuing firm is available to the market prior to IPO. This study is to examine the IPO valuation based on the prospectus information, which is perceived as comprehensive information about the firm prior to the IPOs. Furthermore, this study is also to observe the impact of the prospectus information on the IPO after market performances.

This research applied Ajzen´s theory of planned behaviour (TPB) to investigate the payment behaviour of over-indebted consumers within the German mailorder industry. Both imprisoned (N=41) and not-imprisoned (N=97) consumers´ attitudes, social norms, perceived behavioural control (PBC), its correspondent beliefs, and payment intention were analysed using structural equation modelling with the partial least squares approach. Although the sample size was small, the fit of the models were statistically valid and no statistical difference between imprisoned and not-imprisoned consumers was ascertained. The main predictor variables were analysed regarding gender specification and were enriched with moral norms and past behaviour. Subjective norm was the strongest predictor of payment behaviour of the not-imprisoned sample. Gender had a statistically relevant impact on payment intention. In sum, the main constructs of the TPB explained 35.8% of the variance in intention (R²) to pay further mail-order invoices on time. PBC increased the accuracy and the model was therefore superior to the theory of reasoned action (R² = 28.5%). The extension of the TPB with moral norms led to an increase of R² to 47.0%, with past behaviour to 39.5%, and with both to 49.0%. Therefore, this supports the extension of the basic model of the TPB in order to strengthen the explanation of the behaviour under consideration. In general, the outcome of this study identifies further related factors concerning payment behaviour, beyond those previously present within research and practice. From a practical perspective this study adds significant value to the understanding of over-indebtedness in Germany and its implication for the mailorder industry. It demonstrates the alarming debt situation of individuals over the last several years and the ambivalence regarding the normality of having debts in Germany. It emphasizes the complexity of payment behaviour and its personal influences. Payment of a mail-order invoice on time has no single specific causation, but typically is caused by more factors than previously thought.

This study explores the value creation in relationship banking from the relationship managers' perspective. A grounded theory approach (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) is adopted that theory is derived from data, systematically gathered and analyzed throughout the research process. This study derives concepts and categories from primary data and identifies relationships among these theoretical elements. This study provides a comprehensive picture of relationship banking as a social phenomenon, and supplies some theoretical and managerial implications. Moreover, this study links the literature relevant to relationship banking from different disciplines. This is a new way of looking at the relationship banking phenomenon and relevant literature in an integrated manner. This study conducted research to investigate why the case banks establish long-term relationships with corporate customers? The case banks considered macro conditions including the advances in technology, financial deregulation, and business globalisation when they adopted relationship banking. The interviewees perceived that relationship banking was efficient for managing risk, effective for saving cost and necessary for cross-selling. Some intervening conditions including customer information and knowledge, customer needs and customer confidence also influence the development of relationship banking. This study investigated how the case banks establish and maintain these relationships and how they organise and motivate relationship managers? The case banks built a relationship orientated corporate culture, organised employees around customer relationships and employed customervalue based performance measurement and incentive-based reward system. The employees cooperated inside the organisation and communicated with their customers regularly, exchanged information and provided relationship transactions. This study also investigated how the case banks and corporate customers get benefits from relationship banking? The interviewees perceived that the corporate customers gained benefits including fund availability, product availability, service quality, in-time heir, and business platform. The case banks gained benefits including reduction of credit risk, increase in income, sustainable profit, customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction. The findings were integrated and linked to some banking, finance, organisation and marketing literature related to relationship banking phenomenon. The case banks increased internal service quality through employee relationship management and improved employee satisfaction. The interviewees perceived that the corporate customers received benefits in the corporate banking market by customer relationship management. The increased customer satisfaction resulted in customer retention and profit to the case banks. The case banks perceived that added shareholder wealth improved shareholder satisfaction. This study concluded that the case banks, which had more relationship banking competitive advantages and better relationship banking, related processing systems were expected to outperform the competing banks.

Portfolio optimization in an uncertain environment has great practical value in investment decision process. But this area is highly fragmented due to fast evolution of market structure and changing investor behavior. In this dissertation, four methods are investigated/designed to explore their efficiency under different circumstances. Parametric portfolio decomposes weights by set of factors whose coefficients are uniquely determined via maximizing utility function. A robust bootstrap method is proposed to assist factor selection. If investors exhibit asymmetric aversion of tail risk, pessimistic models on Choquet utility maximization and coherent risk measures acquire superiority. A new hybrid method that inherits advantage of parameterization and tail risk minimization is designed. Mean-variance, which is optimal with elliptical return distribution, should be employed in the case of capital allocation to trading strategies. Nonparametric classifiers may enhance homogeneity of inputs before feeding the optimizer. Traditional factor portfolio can be extended to functional settings by applying FPCA to return curves sorted by factors. Diversification is always achieved by mixing with detected nonlinear components. This research contributes to existing literature on portfolio choice in three-folds: strength and weakness of each method is clarified; new models that outperform traditional approaches are developed; empirical studies are used to facilitate comparison.

Options are important and frequently traded products in the modern financial market. How to price them fairly and reasonably is always an interesting issue for academia and industry. This research is performed under the classical multi-asset Black-Scholes-Merton (BSM) model and can be extended to other exotic models. We show how to reformulate the multi-asset Black-Scholes-Merton partial differential equation/inequality (BSM PDE/PDI) and provide theorems to justify the unique solution of reformulations. In terms of discretization, we adopt the finite element method (FEM) in space and finite difference method (FDM) in time. Moreover, we develop the closed-form formulas for the elemental matrices used in the finite element assembly process in a general high-dimensional framework. The discrete systems of option pricing problems are presented in the form of linear system of equations (LSE) and linear complementary problems (LCP) for European and American/perpetual options respectively. Up to six different algorithms for the LCP are introduced and compared on the basis of computational efficiency and errors. The option values of European, American and perpetual types are calibrated when given various payoffs and up to three assets. Particularly, their numerical free boundaries are identified and presented in the form of (d - 1)-dimensional manifold in a d-assetframework. In the last chapter, we conclude our research with our contributions and potential extension.