This dissertation presents three different closely related topics on the value of eco-friendliness in the financial market. The first essay attempts to estimate hedonic stock price model to find a contemporaneous relationship between stock return and firms’ environmental performance and recover the value of investor’s willingness to pay of eco-friendliness. This study follows stock and environmental performances of the 500 largest US firms from 2009 to 2012. The firms’ environmental data come from the Newsweek Green Ranking, both aggregate measures: green ranking (GR) and green score (GS), and disaggregate measures: environmental impact score (EIS), green policy and performance score (GPS), reputation survey score (RSS), and environmental disclosure score (EDS). The results show a non-linear relationship between environmental variables and stock return, i.e. upside down bowl shape or increasing in decreasing rate. That means for low green ranking firms the marginal effect is positive while for high green ranking firms the marginal effect is negative. The investor’s willingness to pay (WTP) for a greener stock for firms in the lowest 25 green ranking, on average, is 0.0096% higher stock price. The second essays attempt to determine if a firm’s environmental performance affects future systematic risk. Systematic risk measures an individual stock’s volatility relative to the market price. This study also uses the Newsweek Green Ranking’s environmental variables. The results show significant evidence of a non-linear relationship between green variables and systematic (market) risk, but the shape is not unanimous for all environmental variables. The shape of the relationship for green ranking (GR), for example, is U-shape. This means that for the firms in the bottom rank, improving rank will lower systematic (market) risk, and for the firms in the top rank improving rank will increase systematic (market) risk. On average the marginal effect for the firms in the bottom and top 25 firms are -0.2% and 0.09% respectively. The third essay is the effect of a firm’s environmental performances on a firm’s idiosyncratic risk. Idiosyncratic risk measures an individual stock’s volatility independent from the market price. This study also uses the Newsweek Green Ranking’s environmental variables. The results show significant non-linear relationships between environmental variables and idiosyncratic risk, even though there is no unanimous shape among the environmental variables. In the case of green ranking, for example, it has U-shape; for the firms in the bottom rank, improving green ranking will lower idiosyncratic risk and for firm in the top green ranking, improving green ranking will increase idiosyncratic risk. On average the marginal effect for firm in bottom and top 25 firms are -0.4% and 0.2% respectively.

Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are increasingly important subjects in today's society. To measure a company's Corporate Social Performance (CSP); the ESG-rating has been developed throughout the years. As investors and the public are starting to acknowledge a company's sustainable actions and the importance of these, more and more companies choses to be rated using ESG-rating. As the knowledge around the subject has started to increase, we want to find out if it affects the risk of a company or an investment? Theories relating to the topic, such as stakeholder theory, suggests that satisfying all of a company’s stakeholders creates value for a company. Previous studies in the topic has interpreted this as high ESG-ratings should equal lower risks for the company. Additionally, previous studies in the relationship between sustainability and profitability shows a positive correlation between the two, meaning that companies that incorporate sustainability in general have higher profits. The purpose of this study is to investigate if high ESG-ratings could lead to lower firm’s risk in Sweden. There has been a lot of previous research in the area, but none focusing on Sweden. The majority of the previous studies have concluded that there exists a negative relationship between CSP and a firm’s risk, which indicates that if a company would integrate CSR it could lower the risk. This study will include 145 Swedish companies with 2,610 firm-year observations from the period 2001-12-21 to 2019-12-31. The risk measures used are; Total Risk (Volatility), Systematic Risk (Beta) and Idiosyncratic Risk. As for the ESG-ratings, the data is obtained from ASSET4 from the database Thomson Reuters Eikon as the measure of CSP. Furthermore a multiple regression analysis is performed to statistically investigate the relationship between a company's ESG-rate (and the three pillars Environmental, Social and Governance) and risk. The study concluded that there exists a statistically significant positive relationship between Volatility and Idiosyncratic Risk and the ESG-score for Swedish firms. As for the individual pillars; Environmental (ENV), Social (SOC) and Governance (GOV); the result indicated that there existed a statistically significant positive relationship between Volatility and Idiosyncratic Risk with the two pillars; ENV and GOV, respectively. This suggests that the higher ESG-score, ENV and GOV-scores of Swedish firms the higher Volatility and Idiosyncratic Risk. Neither Volatility or Idiosyncratic risk showed a statistically significant relationship with the social pillar. Consequently we are not able to confirm the relationship between Volatility and Idiosyncratic Risk with the Social pillar. Regarding Beta, the study found no statistically significant relationship with the ESG-score, as well as for the individual pillars; Environmental, Social and Governance. Therefore we are not able to confirm a relationship for Beta and the ESG-score, ENV, SOC and GOV-scores. As a final remark this study concluded the opposite as for previous research and consequently this thesis has contributed with new knowledge within the area of ESG-rating and risk for Swedish companies.

This study investigates the moderating role of the agency conflict between controlling and minority shareholders on the investment-risk relationship. When the ownership-control structure is concentrated, the agency theory indicates that the separation between cash-flow rights and voting rights induces the controlling shareholder to extract private benefits. To assess the effect of ownership-control divergence on the investment-risk relation, we use system generalized method of moments estimator (SYS-GMM) in longitudinal data from 412 Brazilian firms between 1997 and 2010. Our results show that investment is less sensitive to idiosyncratic risk for companies in which the largest shareholder presents high levels of ownership-control divergence. The impact of excess voting rights on the investment-risk sensitivity holds after we group firms according to distinct corporate governance and financial characteristics, such as financial constraints, family control, board independence, and the type of control-enhancing mechanism. Board independence does not affect controlling shareholders\' behavior toward risky investments. Among the control-enhancing mechanisms, the issuance of dual class shares is the main driver of the lower investment sensitivity to idiosyncratic risk. Our findings are consistent with entrenchment effects in the sense that dominant shareholders may select riskier projects when investing other people\'s money, which have both managerial and policy implications. / Este estudo investiga o papel moderador do conflito de agência entre acionistas controladores e minoritários no relacionamento investimento-risco. Quando a estrutura de propriedade e controle é concentrada, a teoria da agência indica que a separação entre direitos de fluxo de caixa e direitos de voto induz o acionista controlador a extrair benefícios privados. Para avaliar o efeito da divergência propriedade-controle na relação investimento-risco, utilizamos o estimador de método dos momentos generalizado sistêmico (MMG-SIS) em dados longitudinais de 412 empresas brasileiras entre 1997 e 2010. Nossos resultados mostram que o investimento é menos sensível ao risco idiossincrático para empresas em que o maior acionista apresenta altos níveis de divergência propriedade-controle. O impacto dos direitos de voto em excesso na sensibilidade investimento-risco mantém-se após agruparmos as empresas de acordo com características de governança corporativa e financeiras, tais como restrições financeiras, controle familiar, independência do conselho e o tipo de mecanismo para aumento do controle. A independência do conselho não afeta o comportamento dos acionistas controladores em relação a investimentos arriscados. Entre os mecanismos para aumento do controle, a emissão de duas classes de ações é a principal direcionadora da menor sensibilidade do investimento ao risco idiossincrático. Nossas descobertas são consistentes com os efeitos de entrincheiramento no sentido de que os acionistas dominantes podem selecionar projetos mais arriscados ao investirem o dinheiro de outras pessoas, o que tem implicações gerenciais e políticas.

La thèse comporte trois parties, dont l’objet d’étude est l’immobilier soit en s’intéressant directement au marché immobilier résidentiel parisien, soit indirectement en analysant les REITs dont l’actif sous-jacent est l’immobilier. La première partie porte sur l’examen des facteurs macroéconomiques et financiers qui ont influencé, au cours de la période 1996-2010, les prix résidentiels à Paris en appliquant un modèle VAR (vector autoregressive). Dans la deuxième partie, nous analysons, au cours de la période 2007-2012, l’interaction entre les rendements des REITS et les facteurs macroéconomiques/financiers dans dix pays développés (les Etats-Unis, le Canada, l’Australie, l’Europe, la Zone Euro, le Japon, Hong-Kong, la France, le Royaume-Uni et l’Allemagne) en appliquant un modèle VAR. Les REITs investissent sur l’immobilier, mais ils sont cotés sur un marché boursier. Par conséquent, ils héritent des caractéristiques à la fois de l’immobilier et des actions. Ce caractère hybride des REITs nous conduit à nous interroger sur leur risque et le rôle qu’ils peuvent jouer dans la gestion de portefeuille. C’est pourquoi dans la troisième partie nous examinons, au cours de la période 2001-2012, l’effet des deux composantes du risque (bêta et le risque idiosyncratique) et certains facteurs spécifiques aux REITs (taille, rapport Actif Net Comptable / valeur de marché et la mesure d’illiquidité) sur les rendements des REITs européens (la France, l’Allemagne, le Royaume-Uni, les Pays-Bas et l’Italie) en appliquant le modèle à trois facteurs de Fama et French et la méthodologie de Fama et MacBeth. / The thesis consists of three parts, whose purpose is the real estate market either being interested directly in the residential real estate market in Paris, or indirectly by analyzing REITs, whose underlying asset is the real estate. In the first part entitled “Which Macroeconomics and Financial Factors Affect Real Estate Prices in Paris”, we employ a vector autoregressive (VAR) model in order to examine, during the period 1996-2010, the relation between residential prices in Paris and several macroeconomic/financial factors. In the second part entitled “How Legislation, REIT System and Taxes Influence REITs Returns Sensitivity to Macroeconomic and Financial Factors? An International Perspective”, we analyze, by applying a VAR model, during the period 2007-2012, dynamic interactions among REITs returns and macroeconomic factors for ten developed countries (the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, Eurozone, Japan, Hong Kong, France, Britain and Germany). REITs invest in real estate and they are publicly traded. Thus they inherit the characteristics of both real estate and stocks. This hybrid nature of REITs reveals the importance of their risk and the role they can play in portfolio management. Therefore, in the third part entitled “Cross-Sectional Expected European REITs Returns : does Volatility Matters ?”, we investigate, during the period 2001-2012, the effect of the two components of risk (beta and idiosyncratic risk) and some specific factors of REITs (size, Net Asset Value to Market Value and illiquidity measure) on European REITs returns (France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Italy) by applying the Fama and French model and cross-sectional regressions.

This thesis contains four essays, which studies the macroeconomic effects of fiscal and monetary policy quantitatively. The first essay investigates whether Swedish postwar business cycles have been generated by domestic or foreign shocks and finds that they are about equally important. In the second essay, the effects of government budget deficits on interest rates in Sweden are studied in a small open economy framework. The empirical results, which have high power due to very large swings in deficits and interest rates, provide support that larger deficits produce higher interest rates and thus give support against the ricardian view. The third essay seeks to identify optimal social insurance and redistribution levels in Sweden and the U.S. with respect to temporary and permanent idiosyncratic productivity risks. The results indicate that Sweden should reduce the social security level while the U.S. should approximately maintain the current level. In the last essay, the small sample properties of a well-known statistical test for the Lucas critique - the super exogeneity test - is studied in a general equilibrium environment. The results indicate that the super exogeneity test do not have sufficient power in small samples. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.

Submitted by glenda rossetti (glenda.rossetti@hotmail.com) on 2017-02-14T21:47:23Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_GR_VF.docx: 838594 bytes, checksum: 74fa4382a60e547afda6b97112754b86 (MD5) / Rejected by Renata de Souza Nascimento (renata.souza@fgv.br), reason: Glenda, boa noite Para que possamos aceitar seu trabalho, por gentileza, deixe o seu nome em letras maiúsculas. Em seguida, submeter novamente. O trabalho deve estar em PDF. Att on 2017-02-14T22:36:30Z (GMT) / Submitted by glenda rossetti (glenda.rossetti@hotmail.com) on 2017-02-14T22:42:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_GR_VF.docx: 838594 bytes, checksum: 74fa4382a60e547afda6b97112754b86 (MD5) / Rejected by Renata de Souza Nascimento (renata.souza@fgv.br), reason: Glenda, Por gentileza, na capa, contra capa seu nome deve estar em letras maiúsculas. Salvar o arquivo em PDF para submete-lo novamente. Att on 2017-02-14T23:00:11Z (GMT) / Submitted by glenda rossetti (glenda.rossetti@hotmail.com) on 2017-02-14T23:06:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese.pdf: 1154738 bytes, checksum: 1f5b61ad6de4e5cc8e13490446a2f782 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Renata de Souza Nascimento (renata.souza@fgv.br) on 2017-02-14T23:12:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese.pdf: 1154738 bytes, checksum: 1f5b61ad6de4e5cc8e13490446a2f782 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-15T15:09:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese.pdf: 1154738 bytes, checksum: 1f5b61ad6de4e5cc8e13490446a2f782 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-01-19 / This paper has two objectives: verify whether systematic risk is different across countries by comparing risk return ratio of market portfolios and equally weighted portfolios (1/N) to verify their efficiency and the levels of diversification across countries by showing risk behavior increasing diversification. Monthly dollars returns were selected from the forty (40) largest shares of fourteen (14) capital markets indexes of the major developed and emerging economies during the period from June 30, 2011 to May 31, 2016 to construct equally weighted portfolios (1/N) and compare them to market portfolios. Based on the assuming of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT), the empirical tests have shown evidence that systemic risks are different between the capital markets of the main developed and emerging economies, that market portfolios are not efficient and despite of this, the number of shares required to achieve a certain level of diversification is similar across countries. The results found are in agreement with the literature researched both internationally and nationally. / Este trabalho tem dois objetivos: verificar se o risco sistemático é diferente entre países comparando a relação risco retorno dos portfólios de mercado com portfólios igualmente ponderados (1/N) para verificar sua eficiência e se os níveis de diversificação entre os países mostrando o comportamento do risco com o aumento da diversificação. Foram selecionados retornos mensais em dólares das quarenta (40) maiores ações de catorze (14) índices de mercados de capitais das principais economias desenvolvidas e emergentes no período de 30 de Junho de 2011 á 31 de Maio de 2016 para construir portfólios igualmente ponderados (1/N) e compará-los aos portfólios de mercado. Partindo dos pressupostos da Teoria Moderna do Portfólio (MPT) os ensaios empíricos realizados neste trabalho revelaram evidências de que os riscos sistêmicos são diferentes entre os mercados de capitais das principais economias desenvolvidas e emergentes, que os portfólios de mercados não são eficientes e apesar disso, o número de ações necessárias para adquirir certo nível de diversificação é semelhante entre os países. Os resultados encontrados estão de acordo com a literatura pesquisada tanto internacionalmente quanto nacionalmente.

This study investigates the moderating role of the agency conflict between controlling and minority shareholders on the investment-risk relationship. When the ownership-control structure is concentrated, the agency theory indicates that the separation between cash-flow rights and voting rights induces the controlling shareholder to extract private benefits. To assess the effect of ownership-control divergence on the investment-risk relation, we use system generalized method of moments estimator (SYS-GMM) in longitudinal data from 412 Brazilian firms between 1997 and 2010. Our results show that investment is less sensitive to idiosyncratic risk for companies in which the largest shareholder presents high levels of ownership-control divergence. The impact of excess voting rights on the investment-risk sensitivity holds after we group firms according to distinct corporate governance and financial characteristics, such as financial constraints, family control, board independence, and the type of control-enhancing mechanism. Board independence does not affect controlling shareholders\' behavior toward risky investments. Among the control-enhancing mechanisms, the issuance of dual class shares is the main driver of the lower investment sensitivity to idiosyncratic risk. Our findings are consistent with entrenchment effects in the sense that dominant shareholders may select riskier projects when investing other people\'s money, which have both managerial and policy implications. / Este estudo investiga o papel moderador do conflito de agência entre acionistas controladores e minoritários no relacionamento investimento-risco. Quando a estrutura de propriedade e controle é concentrada, a teoria da agência indica que a separação entre direitos de fluxo de caixa e direitos de voto induz o acionista controlador a extrair benefícios privados. Para avaliar o efeito da divergência propriedade-controle na relação investimento-risco, utilizamos o estimador de método dos momentos generalizado sistêmico (MMG-SIS) em dados longitudinais de 412 empresas brasileiras entre 1997 e 2010. Nossos resultados mostram que o investimento é menos sensível ao risco idiossincrático para empresas em que o maior acionista apresenta altos níveis de divergência propriedade-controle. O impacto dos direitos de voto em excesso na sensibilidade investimento-risco mantém-se após agruparmos as empresas de acordo com características de governança corporativa e financeiras, tais como restrições financeiras, controle familiar, independência do conselho e o tipo de mecanismo para aumento do controle. A independência do conselho não afeta o comportamento dos acionistas controladores em relação a investimentos arriscados. Entre os mecanismos para aumento do controle, a emissão de duas classes de ações é a principal direcionadora da menor sensibilidade do investimento ao risco idiossincrático. Nossas descobertas são consistentes com os efeitos de entrincheiramento no sentido de que os acionistas dominantes podem selecionar projetos mais arriscados ao investirem o dinheiro de outras pessoas, o que tem implicações gerenciais e políticas.

本研究以企業現金持有之理論結合經理人股票選擇權是否使經理人有不同的投資決策。並提出在超額現金情境之下，經理人具有股票選擇權的風險誘因將會傾向透過執行併購的方式，增加非系統性風險的投資，並貢獻長遠的經濟利潤。本研究蒐集於 1992 年至 2014 年的 S&P1500 企業，根據是否具有超額現金將公司進行分組，並對選擇權誘因進行回歸分析。實證結果顯示具中有風險誘因的經理人在具有超額現金的公司中會有顯著更高的傾向執行併購，尤其當公司同時是屬於舊產業。此外當排除全額股票支付的併購與公開上市的被併公司後，投資人會給予顯著的正面反應。 / This study combines the cash holdings theory and executive stock options (ESOs), and investigates whether excess cash holdings could enlarge the risk incentive effect of ESOs on idiosyncratic-risk investments with positive NPV via mergers and acquisitions (M&As). By examining the Standard and Poor indexed 1500 firms from 1992 to 2014, we find that CEO with ESOs in cash-rich firm is significantly more likely to make M&As especially when the cash-rich firm is in old economy. In addition, investors give positive reaction when CEO with ESOs in cash-rich firm acquires a non-public target and doesn’t adopt the all-stock payment.

In this thesis, we set out to model the market risk exposure for 251 stocks in the S&P 500 index, during a ten-year period between 2011-04-30 and 2021-03-31. The study brings to light a model not often mentioned in the scientific literature focused on market risk estimation, the linear mixed model. The linear mixed model makes it possible to model a time-varying market risk, as well as adding structure to the idiosyncratic risk, which is often assumed to be a stationary process. The results show that the mixed model is able to produce more accurate estimates for the market risk, compared to the baseline, which is here defined as a CAPM model. The success of the mixed model, which we in the study will refer to as the ADAPT model (adaptive APT), most certainly lies in its ability to create a hierarchical regression model. This makes it possible to not just view the set of observations as a single population, but let us group the observations into different clusters and in such a way makes it possible to construct a time-varying exposure. In the last part of the thesis, we highlight possible improvements for future works, which could make the estimation even more accurate and also more efficient.

[pt] Estratégias de diversificação de riqueza têm como objetivo eliminar o risco idiossincrático. Estas estratégias não estão disponíveis para acionistas controladores em empresas como no Brasil, em que o controle tem grande valor e os controladores não querem correr o risco de abrir mão dele, como visto por Leal et al (2002). Nesse contexto, risco idiossincrático deve ser relevante para decisões de endividamento corporativo. Para testar esta hipótese, é coletada uma amostra de 329 empresas de capital aberto da B3 de 2003 a 2017. Regressões com variáveis instrumentais mostram que 1 desvio padrão de variação do risco idiossincrático impacta em uma redução de endividamento de 0,18 desvio padrão. Esta relação não é encontrada para empresas controladas pelo governo. Concentração de propriedade, portanto, magnifica problemas de financiamento e alocação de capital em empresas privadas. / [en] Wealth diversification strategies aim to eliminate idiosyncratic risk. Those strategies are not available for controlling shareholders in companies like in Brazil, where control is highly valued, and shareholders don’t want to risk losing it, as seen in Leal et al (2002). In this context, idiosyncratic risk should be relevant for capital structure decision making. To test this hypothesis, a sample of 329 private firms in B3 from 2003 to 2017 is used. Regressions with instrumental variables show that 1 standard deviation change in idiosyncratic risk impacts in a reduction in leverage of 0.18 standard deviations. This relation is not found among government-controlled firms. Thus, propriety concentration magnifies financing problems and capital allocation in private firms.