<p>Investors in the financial market are supposed to hold diversified portfolios to minimize their risk adjusted for expected return. However, several researchers have pointed out that most investors are over weighted in their home market. This means that most diversification happens in terms of choosing stocks in the home market which means that further possible diversification through international diversification is unused. One can therefore expect that foreign investors have preferences for securities with specific characteristics once they go abroad. An earlier study of the Swedish stock market over the years 1993-1997 has shown that foreign investors, in greater extent than domestic investors, have a preference for large firms, firms paying low dividend and firms with low leverage. With the steep up-turn of the Swedish stock market before the millennium and the down-turn in year 2000 in mind, this study examine whether the investment patterns between 1996 and 2005 are consistent with the results of earlier investigations. In general the results are consistent with earlier investigations. However, this study also shows that foreign investors seem to be more interested in choosing securities with relatively high fundamental value and lower level of leverage during market down-turns.</p>

Investors in the financial market are supposed to hold diversified portfolios to minimize their risk adjusted for expected return. However, several researchers have pointed out that most investors are over weighted in their home market. This means that most diversification happens in terms of choosing stocks in the home market which means that further possible diversification through international diversification is unused. One can therefore expect that foreign investors have preferences for securities with specific characteristics once they go abroad. An earlier study of the Swedish stock market over the years 1993-1997 has shown that foreign investors, in greater extent than domestic investors, have a preference for large firms, firms paying low dividend and firms with low leverage. With the steep up-turn of the Swedish stock market before the millennium and the down-turn in year 2000 in mind, this study examine whether the investment patterns between 1996 and 2005 are consistent with the results of earlier investigations. In general the results are consistent with earlier investigations. However, this study also shows that foreign investors seem to be more interested in choosing securities with relatively high fundamental value and lower level of leverage during market down-turns.

Die erste Studie analysiert den Einfluss von Gläubigerschutz auf die internationalen Anlageentscheidungen in Anleihemärkten. In den Ländern mit einem überdurchschnittlichen Gläubigerschutz wirkt ein verbesserter Gläubigerschutz im Heimatmarkt positiv auf die Nachfrage nach ausländischen Anleihen, reduziert jedoch den positiven Effekt des ausländischen Gläubigerschutzes auf die internationale Diversifikation. Die zweite Studie analysiert die Behavioral Finance Erklärungsansätze für Home Bias. Es wird gezeigt, dass Patriotismus und Intoleranz gegen Unsicherheit einen negativen Einfluss auf die internationale Diversifikation in Anleihemärkten haben. Die dritte Studie analysiert die Vorhersagekraft der Händlerpositionen auf die Renditen der Terminkontrakte für Agrarrohstoffe mittels Quantil-Regressionen. Dadurch können signifikante Granger-Kausalitäten zwischen Händlerpositionen und Renditen entdeckt werden, die nicht durch die traditionellen Granger-Kausalitätstests für den Mittelwert der Renditeverteilung aufgedeckt werden können. Die vierte Studie untersucht die kurz- und langfristigen Einflüsse der Spekulanten auf die Preisbildung in den Edelmetallterminmärkten. Es wird gezeigt, dass die kumulierten Änderungen in Händlerpositionen die Edelmetallterminpreise vorhersagen können. Die letzte Studie berücksichtigt die Nichtlinearitäten in der Vorhersagekraft der Handelsaktivität für Renditen in den Bullen- und Bärenmarktphasen der Edelmetallterminmärkte. Die Richtung der Granger-Kausalität zwischen Handelsaktivität und nachfolgenden Renditen ist oft asymmetrisch in den unterschiedlichen Marktphasen, was durch den unterschiedlichen Informationsgehalt der Transaktionen erklärt werden kann. / The first study analyzes the relationship between domestic creditor protection and foreign investment in bond markets. For the investing countries with relatively high levels of domestic creditor protection, a high level of domestic creditor protection is associated with a higher international diversification in bond portfolios and reduces the sensitivity of foreign investment to the foreign creditor protection. The second study explores the behavioral determinants of home bias in debt markets. It shows that patriotism and uncertainty avoidance reduce international diversification. The third paper analyzes the relationship between financial activity and returns in twelve agricultural futures markets based on quantile regressions. Quantile regressions detect significant Granger-causal effects from trader positions to returns that would not have been unveiled while using the traditional "Granger causality in mean" approach. The fourth essay investigates long- and short-term effects of speculative activity on the price mechanism in precious metals futures markets and shows that accumulated changes in positions of speculators have the potential to forecast returns. The last study accounts for non-linearity in the predictive power of trading activity for precious metals futures returns in bull and bear market states. The direction of Granger causality from trading activity to subsequent returns is often asymmetric across bull and bear markets, which may be explained by the different informational content of trades.

[pt] Este estudo define um modelo de dois países que seguem a estrutura exposta em Gertler-Karadi (2011) e formam uma união monetária. Estudamos o impacto de fricções financeiras e os efeitos de políticas monetárias não convencionais implementadas com escopo individual e geral nos países membros desta união. Mostramos que, se os parâmetros usados para limitar o balanço das instituições financeiras forem calibrados para permitir uma alavancagem mais alta, o maior acesso a capital leva a um produto que é, ao mesmo tempo, mais alto no steady state e mais frágil a choques de qualidade de capital. Também mostramos que níveis elevados de Home Bias levam a menos compartilhamento de riscos e a uma disseminação menor de choques idiosincráticos. Por fim, esse estudo também mostra que políticas monetárias não convencionais com escopo individual podem aumentar o bem-estar consideravelmente quando o Home Bias no sistema financeiro é elevado. / [en] This study lays-out a model with two countries that follow the DSGE framework with financial intermediaries set by Gertler-Karadi (2011) and form a monetary union. We study the impact of financial frictions and the effects of union-wide and country-specific unconventional monetary policies in the union s member countries. We show that, if the parameters used to limit balance sheet size are calibrated in a way to allow for higher leverage in the banking system, the easier access to capital leads to an Output level that is, at the same time, higher in the Steady State and more fragile to Capital Quality Shocks. It s also shown that high levels of home-bias lead to lower risk-sharing and lower dissemination of idiosyncratic shocks, which helps explaining why idiosyncratic shocks may cause highly persistent effects in the member countries. Finally, this study also shows that country-specific unconventional monetary policies can be considerably welfare increasing when home-bias in the financial system is high.

Bakgrund: Människor tenderar att i större grad investera i bekanta företag i närområden, detta psykologiska fenomen kallas för home bias. Det kan bli problematiskt då det kan medföra att investerare inte optimerar sina portföljer utifrån risk, avkastning och korrelation mellan tillgångarna i portföljen. Tidigare forskning kring home bias har indikerat på att fenomenet kan drivas av olika förklaringsmekanismer, exempelvis marknadsförhållanden, volatilitet och transaktionskostnader. Forskningen kring home bias har i mindre skala fokuserat på hur home bias förändras i olika marknadsförhållanden dessutom finns endast begränsad forskning om detta för svenska fonder vilket är varför det var intressant att undersöka denna kunskapslucka. Syfte: Syftet var att undersöka och analysera potentiell exponering och förändring av home bias i svenskregistrerade fonder vid marknadsförändringar i ekonomin mellan år 1994–2018. För att definiera olika marknadsförhållanden används termerna bear-marknad vilket är en kontraherande marknad och bull-marknad som är motsatsen. Detta har sedan undersökts och analyserats tillsammans med de två valda förklaringsmekanismerna volatilitet och transaktionskostnader. Metod: Studien var kvantitativ med en deduktiv ansats. Den primära datan har bestod av den totala svenska fondförmögenheten mellan 1994–2018 och den totala världsmarknadsportföljen. Dessutom har indexdata använts för att fånga marknadsförändringar och svenska genomsnittliga fondavgifter för att beskriva transaktionskostnader. Att inkludera volatilitet och transaktionskostnader grundade sig på den tidigare forskningens tyngdpunkt på dessa två mekanismer. Analysmetoden har främst utgått från hypotestest för dessa variabler. Slutsats: Resultatet av studien hittade signifikanta samband för home bias för svenskregistrerade fonder både för bear-och bull-marknad, vilket ligger i linje med tidigare forskning som har sett att bear-marknader leder till ökning av home bias på grund av att osäkerheten i omvärlden gör investerare i större grad villiga att placera i det bekanta. Dessutom har tidigare forskning visat att home bias minskar under säkrare perioder vilket denna studies resultat av sambandet mellan bull-marknaden och home bias indikerat. Vidare visade båda förklaringsmekanismerna att de har ett signifikant samband med home bias. Resultatet har därmed bidragit till kunskap om home bias i marknadsförhållanden för den svenska fondmarknaden och kan i större grad motverka investerare att hamna i psykologiska fällor som leder till sämre investeringsbeslut. / Background: People tend to invest a large portion of their investments in familiar companies near their home area, this psychological phenomenon is called home bias. This can become problematic thus it means that investors do not optimize their portfolios based on risk, return and correlation between assets in the portfolio. In addition, there are studies that indicate that home bias is driven by various explanatory mechanisms, for example market conditions, volatility and transaction costs. Research about home bias has in a smaller scale focused on how home bias changes in different market conditions, especially in Sweden and for funds, therefore it would be interesting to investigate this knowledge gap. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine and analyze the relationship between funds registered in Sweden and their potential exposure to home bias in various market conditions in the economy between 1994-2018. To define market conditions, the concepts bear market is used when the market is in a contracting phase and bull market is used when the opposite conditions occur. This has been examined and analyzed together with the two selected explanatory mechanisms volatility and transaction costs. Method: The method for this research is quantitative with a deductive approach. The primary data used to investigate home bias comes from statistics of total Swedish fund assets between 1994-2018 and the total world market portfolio. Furthermore, index data is used to capture market changes and data of average fund fees are used to examine transaction costs. The choice to include volatility and transaction costs is based on the previous research emphasis on these two mechanisms. The method of analysis is based primarily on hypothesis testing for the mentioned variables. Conclusion: The result of the study shows that the relationship between bear and bull markets and home bias for funds registered in Sweden are significant. Which is in line with previous research that states that bear markets lead to an increase in home bias because the uncertainty around the world makes investors to a greater extent willing to invest in the familiar. In addition, previous research has shown that home bias decreases during safer periods, which the results of the relationship between the bull market and home bias indicate in this study. Furthermore, both explanatory mechanisms showed that they are significantly associated with home bias. The result has contributed to the knowledge of home bias for the Swedish fund market in various market conditions and can in a larger scale counteract investors to fall in to psychological traps and go through with badly made investment decisions.

本文研究目的是探討跨國機構投資者的持股比例和公司特性間的關係，藉由分析跨國機構投資者的持股偏好來推論影響國際權益投資分佈的原因。研究對象為我國投信發行之海外基金以及投資於我國集中市場的外資、我國投信及金融機構。研究期間為1996-2001年，利用隨機效果模型（Random Effect Model）實證結合橫斷面以及時間序列的追蹤資料(panel data)，以分析投資者所偏好的公司特性，進而推論投資者投資偏好本國市場的原因。 本研究首先探討跨國機構投資者的持股偏好，其次探討在本國市場的機構投資者的持股偏好，以分析投資者的持股比例和公司特性間的關係。經實證後結論如下： 一、我國機構投資者對外投資所偏好的公司特性為市值大、流動比率高、對外銷貨比率高、交易週轉率高的公司，證明了資訊不對稱以及交易成本是決定我國跨國機構投資者投資偏好的原因。 二、外資顯著偏好市值大、有發行過海外證券的我國上市公司，顯示外資明顯偏好資訊不對稱程度比較小的公司。 三、機構投資者－外資、我國投信、金融機構都顯著偏好市值規模大的我國上市公司，而以外資偏好的程度最大。顯示資訊不對稱問題同樣會影響投資者在本國證券市場的投資行為。

Thesis advisor: Susanto Basu / The goal of this dissertation is to shed some light on three separate aspects of the financial system that can lead to greater instability in the banking sector and greater macroeconomic volatility. The starting point of the Great Recession was the collapse of the banking sector in late 2007; in the subsequent months, liquidity evaporated in many markets for short term funding. The process of creating liquidity carried out by the banking system involves the transformation of long term illiquid assets into short term liquid liabilities. This engine functions properly as long as cash lenders continue to roll over short term funding to banks; whenever these lenders fear that banks will not be able to pay back these obligations, they immediately stop funding banks' short term liabilities. This makes banks unable to repay maturing short term debt, which leads to large spikes in default risk. This is often referred to as a modern bank run. Virtually all the theories of bank runs suggest that the severity of a run depends on how well lenders can coordinate their beliefs: whenever a lender expects many others to run, he becomes more likely to run as well. In a joint work with Emanuele Brancati, the first chapter of my dissertation, we empirically document the role of coordination in explaining bank runs and default risk. We establish two new results. First, when information is more precise and agents can better coordinate their actions, a change in market expectations has a larger impact on default risk; this implies that more precise information increases the vulnerability or instability of the banking system. This result has a clear policy implication: if policymakers want to stabilize the banking system they should promote opacity instead of transparency, especially during periods of financial turmoil. Second, we show that when a bank is expected to perform poorly, lower dispersion of beliefs actually increases default risk; this result is in contrast with standard theories in finance and can be rationalized by thinking about the impact that more precise information has on the ability of creditors to coordinate on a bank run. Another aspect of the banking system that is creating a lot of instability in Europe is the so called "disastrous banks-sovereign nexus": many banks in troubled countries owned a disproportionately large amount of domestic sovereign bonds; therefore, in case of a default of the sovereign country, the whole domestic banking sector would incur insurmountable losses. This behavior is puzzling because these banks in troubled countries would greatly benefit from having a more diversified asset portfolio, but instead decide to load up with domestic sovereign debt only. In a joint work with Filippo De Marco, the second chapter of my dissertation, we show that banks receive political pressures from their respective governments to load up on domestic sovereigns. First, we show that banks with a larger fraction of politicians as shareholders display greater home bias. More importantly, we exploit the fact that low-performing banks received liquidity injections by their domestic governments to show that, among those banks, only the "political banks" drastically increased their home bias upon receiving government help. Furthermore, it appears that the extent of political pressure on banks is much stronger on those "political banks" belonging to troubled countries. These findings suggest that troubled countries that would need to pay a high premium to issue new debt force their "political banks" to purchase part of the debt issuance. This greater risk-synchronization can create a dangerous loop of higher sovereign default risk leading to insolvency of the domestic banking system, which in turn would require a bail-out from the local government, further exacerbating the sovereign de- fault risk. Finally, the third chapter of my dissertation, a joint work with Susanto Basu, investigates the sources of excess consumption volatility in emerging markets. It is a well documented fact that, in emerging markets, consumption is more volatile than output whereas the opposite is true in developed economies. We propose an explanation for this phenomenon that relies on a specific form of financial markets incompleteness: we assume that households would always want to front-load consumption and they can borrow from abroad up to a fraction of the value of posted collateral. With the value of collateral being procyclical, households are able to increase borrowing during an expansion and ultimately consume more than they produce; this mechanism is then able to generate a ratio of consumption volatility to output volatility grater than one. Most importantly, the model delivers the implication that a better ability to borrow vis-a-vis the same value of collateral generates greater relative consumption volatility. We then bring this model's implication to the data and find empirical support for it. We proxy the ability to borrow with various measures of effectiveness of lending regulation and more standard indicators of financial development. Consistent with the model's implication, more lending friendly regulation leads to greater relative consumption volatility in emerging markets; moreover, this link breaks down among developed countries. In addition, among emerging countries, it appears that deeper domestic capital markets have a destabilizing effect in terms of greater relative consumption volatility while a more developed domestic banking system does not exerts any such detrimental effect. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

<p>I analyze a large number of investment decisions based on theories that have been developed and formalized over the past 50 years. Previous work in this field unveils a number of biases which affect ones choices when the outcome is uncertain. In my thesis I find evidence of these already known biases and focus on finding rational explanations for their existence. I also introduce two unexplored biases; the homeboy bias and the menu bias.</p><p>The results clearly indicate that sophisticated investors are generally less subject to these biases. Since pension schemes in many nations are shifting towards defined contribution schemes, investment decisions and risk preferences will be of great consequence to investors’ personal economy and ability to consume, affecting the economy in general. It is therefore of great importance that policy makers do all that they can to increase investors sophistication and create a playing field which facilitates economically sound investing.</p>

I analyze a large number of investment decisions based on theories that have been developed and formalized over the past 50 years. Previous work in this field unveils a number of biases which affect ones choices when the outcome is uncertain. In my thesis I find evidence of these already known biases and focus on finding rational explanations for their existence. I also introduce two unexplored biases; the homeboy bias and the menu bias. The results clearly indicate that sophisticated investors are generally less subject to these biases. Since pension schemes in many nations are shifting towards defined contribution schemes, investment decisions and risk preferences will be of great consequence to investors’ personal economy and ability to consume, affecting the economy in general. It is therefore of great importance that policy makers do all that they can to increase investors sophistication and create a playing field which facilitates economically sound investing.

Univ., Diss.--Hannover, 2004.