Due to the rapid revolution in trading strategies, market environment is very different from the past, and the market intervention in national stock exchanges has been taken seriously again . However, very few studies discussed the rule-based trading suspension for individual stocks in the past, and most of them only focused on the impact of trading halt on market performance. For this reason, this study in addition to measures impact of market performance, another major analysis focuses on the differences between individual and institutional investors order behavior under different halt conditions. We try to understand whether the current halt mechanism achieves the purposes of reducing the information asymmetry and the abnormal volatility. The market performence empirical results show that transitory trading halt can reduce the overreaction of re-opening, but the halt of follow-up 5 minutes of the liquidity decreased, and volatility increased. Next, we find the individual investors order aggressive tend to be conservative in the period of suspension. In contrast, Institutional investor behavior will tend to be more positive with higher information asymmetry and will not be affected by the trading halt. Moreover, from follow-up 20 minutes individual-institutional transaction VWAP ratio, we find that the trading halt will improve the performance of individual investors transactions.

Abstract R&D investment differs from general investments due to more and greater uncertainties. Once the R&D technique is selected and the investment turns into sunk cost, a path dependence of the R&D investment will occur that locks in the involved parties in the R&D cooperation relationship and the determined cost path. Due to information asymmetry, whether the executer honestly provides information about the project type will be critical to the profit or loss of the R&D investment. If a high cost type project be confesses, the financier can immediately terminate the project to avoid more losses. On the contrary, if the cost type is concealed, the financier will sink more costs into it. Thus, soft budget constraint should be seriously considered in R&D investments. First, we capture the intrinsic uncertainty in R&D investment by introducing both cost and outcome uncertainties of R&D investment. Furthermore, we introduce the financier type and the executor¡¦s expectation of the probability that a high cost project would be refinanced ex post to establish a dynamic game of incomplete information. With this setup, we develop reputation effects from repeated R&D games. The incentive for the financier to avoid executor¡¦s opportunism by establishing reputation makes the commitment to hard budget constraint credible. Second, we attempt to develop a foundation for the concept of the SBC and to extend the analysis of SBCs to the contractual relationship of R&D investment. Information asymmetry is one important cause for contractual incompleteness, and the only one cause makes two legal contract theories unhelpful. Instead of relying on court enforcement, it is possible for the financier to leave contract terms unspecified and rely on a private self-enforcement mechanism. Writing down explicit contract terms can define the self-enforcing range by imposing a private sanction on the executer perceived to be violating the contract understanding. Such a self-enforcing relationship is a useful framework in which to analyze the SBC of R&D investment. In Chapter 5, we describe industrial R&D activities in China and uses statistics to calculate the softness of budget constraint. The main point of the R&D investment model is that the incentive for the financier to establish reputation increases as the probability of success decreases. With this point of view, given the probability of success for R&D projects in high-tech industries being lower than that in conventional industries, refinancing should be relatively more common in conventional industries than in high-tech industries. Statistics of R&D activities in China confirm the above proposition in that the computer-related industry has the hardest budget constraint compared to other industries within the state-controlled sector.

The objective of this study is to investigate consumers in the Taiwan region, the situation that when their due rights were being infringed, they had rather accept the unfair treatment from the manufacturers or suppliers, and will not strive for their own rights. In the consumer market, events of consumer right infringement are happening each day, seriously hindering the market order of fair competition. In this moment of the 2007, what are the thoughts within the minds of the consumers in Taiwan ? What are the factors that influence consumers striving for their due rights? In this study, the following issues were reviewed: relationships between manufacturers and consumers; consumer¡¦s cognizance of consumer rights; consumer protection; the roles of the law; government and consumer protection institutions in consumer protection; consumer education; and, consumer self-protection of consumer rights. A survey questionnaire was developed based on five themes of consumers themselves, consumer knowledge, law, government and consumer protection institutions. The survey attempts to understand the internal views of consumers. Consumers in the northern, central and southern Taiwan were randomly sampled according to population distribution. After collecting 170 questionnaires, the responses were coded and analyzed with SAS (statistical software) using Factor Analysis, one-way MANOVA and one-way ANOVA. Several latent factors were extracted, and the difference between consumer gender, age, education background and living region were studied. The results of statistical analysis indicate in 2007, the four main factors affecting consumers¡¦ strive for their rights are: (1) lack of external protection, (2) lack of self-confidence in claiming their rights, (3) dysfunction of consumer protection institutions, and, (4) lack of consumer knowledge. The results further show that the factors differ among living regions, however there is no evidence that there are differences in consumers gender, age and education background. This study has also investigates the level of consumer rights awareness, and the differences in gender, age, education background and living region in such cognizance. The results of statistical analysis show a very low awareness of consumer rights, and there is no evidence to conclude difference between gender, age, education background and living region.

This study examines the market reaction to rights offering announcements in Turkey. Even though the topic is extensively studied in the finance literature, there is still research going on for emerging markets. The first part of this study measures market reaction to rights offering announcements for six different information arrival dates. The results are significantly negative except for the case of the announcement of the rights offering period. Additionally, the sample is divided into two sub-periods as before and after the 2001 crisis. The results show that there is a significant difference in market reaction and this difference is attributed to the change in economic policy after the 2001 crisis. The second part of the study examines the determinants of this market reaction and the findings suggest that bonus issues are positively related and there is also evidence that firms time their equity issues. The third part analyzes the long term performance of equity issuing firms in two subgroups as financial and non-financial firms. The results provide evidence of a negative performance and this finding is consistent with the results of previous studies.

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This research constructed the structural relationships between competitive strategy, size of business unit, task environment, organizational structure, information asymmetry and the information characteristics of management accounting system (MAS). In addition, the structural model included the impact of MAS design, by way of job-relevant information, on managerial performance. There were two kinds of relationship, including the effects of intervening variables, 28 hypotheses were studied. This research collected empirical data of 107 middle-level managers who serviced in those manufacturing companies listed in Taiwan Stock Exchange Market, and used the method of path analysis to test the hypothesized intervening effects. The empirical evidence of this research revealed as follows: 1.Those business units that adopted differentiation strategy have faced relatively high variable task environment, and adopted cost leadership strategy have faced low variable task environment. 2.Those managers of big business units perceived usefulness of broad and aggregated MAS information would be higher than those of small business units. 3.Those managers of business units perceived relatively high usefulness of broad and aggregated MAS information would have high managerial performance than those who perceived low usefulness of broad and aggregated MAS information. 4.Those managers of business units perceived relatively high usefulness of broad and aggregated MAS information would have more job-relevant information than those who perceived low usefulness of broad and aggregated MAS information. 5.Not anticipated effects this research hypothesized, the data revealed those business units that adopted differentiation strategy had low degree of decentralization, and adopted cost leadership strategy had relatively high degree of decentralization. 6.Not anticipated effects this research hypothesized, the data approved the indirect effects of decentralization on strategy type and broad and aggregated MAS information, but those business units which adopted differentiation strategy had relatively low degree of decentralization would perceived high usefulness of broad and aggregated MAS information. 7.The empirical results verified the indirect effects of job-relevant information on broad and aggregated MAS information and managerial performance.

In the context of supply contract design, the more powerful party has the lib- erty of withholding private information which also improves its bargaining power. Traditionally, the supplier (e.g., manufacturer) has been more powerful, and, hence, the existing literature in the area emphasizes supplier-driven contracts. However, in some current markets, such as the grocery channel, the bargaining power has shifted to the buyer (e.g., retailer). For example, in the United States, large retailers, such as Wal-Mart, exert tremendous market power over their suppliers. Also, with the advent of the Internet, buyers have gained access to much more information about multiple potential suppliers. Hence, this dissertation takes into account the recent trends in power shifting between suppliers and buyers, and it attempts to provide a comparison of optimal supply contract designs in supplier- versus buyer-driven chan- nels. This research is unique in that we explore the impact of both power shifting and information asymmetry while designing optimal supply chain contracts under supply uncertainty and competition. Placing an emphasis on the cases of stochastic and/or price-sensitive demand, we work on several novel problems in stochastic mod- eling, nonlinear and dynamic optimization, and game theory. Hence, this research has roots in applied probability, optimization, inventory theory, game theory, and eco- nomics. The goal is to advance our practical knowledge of designing implementable contracts because such knowledge is crucial for optimizing supply chain performance in the real world. This dissertation provides insights about * the individual and joint impacts of the power structure and information asym- metry on supply chain performance, * the value of information for contract design in supplier- versus buyer-driven channels, * the impact of supply uncertainty and supplier competition on contract design in supplier- versus buyer-driven channels.

為加速與國際會計準則接軌，我國財務會計準則委員會於民國93年7月1日發布財務會計準則公報第35號「資產減損之會計處理準則」，並規定得於93年度提前適用。本研究由揭露的角度切入，研究提前適用35號公報之公司，其揭露資產減損資訊數量與代表資訊不對稱變數 (分析師預測錯誤、個股交易量以及股票報酬標準差)間之關聯，以及資產減損揭露降低資訊不對稱之效果，是否會受到管理當局盈餘管理以及經營風險所影響。為衡量揭露資訊之充分性，本研究參考Botosan (1997)與Guo et al. (2004)，自行建構揭露評分項目與評分表，並以迴歸分析來檢定資產減損揭露數量與代表資訊不對稱之替代變數間的關連性。 研究結果顯示，在控制了減損金額後，公司所揭露的資產減損資訊確實具備增額資訊內涵，能降低分析師對未來一年每股盈餘的預測錯誤；然而，有進行「洗大澡」盈餘管理行為之公司，其資產減損揭露資訊降低資訊不對稱效果並未受影響。 另外，電子業以及研發支出佔營業收入淨額比例較高公司，其資產減損揭露資訊則較非電子業及研發支出佔營業收入淨額比例較低公司更能顯著提升個股交易週轉率；然而，公司所揭露之資產減損資訊，卻無法顯著降低股票報酬標準差。本研究另發現相較於研發支出佔營業收入淨額比率，產業別是衡量公司風險較佳之替代變數。 就資產減損揭露資訊的評分結果而言，本研究發現三個現象。第一為有分析師盈餘預測的公司，其資產減損資訊揭露分數與無分析師預測之公司並無顯著差異，此現象可能代表了分析師在決定是否針對特定公司宣告盈餘預測資訊時，資產減損揭露資訊並非決定性因素。第二為提前適用35號公報之公司，其揭露分數就整體而言是偏低的。第三為整體揭露較透明之公司，其資產減損揭露資訊並未顯著優於整體揭露較不透明的公司。 / To harmonize faster with international accounting standards, the Financial Accounting Standards Board of Taiwan issued Financial Accounting Standards No. 35, “Accounting for Asset Impairment” on July 1, 2004, and allowed early adoption. This paper examines the relations between the disclosure quantity-level of asset impairment and proxy variables (financial analysts’ earnings forecast error, trading volume and standard deviation of stock return) of information asymmetry, for the companies which adopted Financial Accounting Standards No. 35 early. In addition, this paper examines whether earnings management or operating risks of company has impact on the effect of reducing information asymmetry. In order to effectively measure the disclosure quantity-level of asset impairment, this paper follows the methods of Botosan (1997) and Guo et al. (2004) to construct a tailor-made disclosure index, and then uses multiple regression models to test the hypotheses. After controlling the dollar amount of asset impairment, this paper finds significant positive relation between the disclosure quantity-level of asset impairment and earnings forecast error. This finding indicates that disclosure of asset impairment has incremental information content to reduce information asymmetry. However, that effect of reducing information asymmetry is not significant for probable candidate companies of earnings management. Within the same disclosure quantity-level, companies in the electronics industry and companies with a higher R&D expenditure to net operating revenue ratio have more stock trading volume than those in non-electronics and those with a lower R&D expenditure ratio, respectively. This paper cannot verify the expected sign between disclosure quantity-level of asset impairment and standard deviation of stock return. This paper also finds that industry, as a proxy variable, is more suitable to represent risk of company than R&D ratio. As to the asset impairment disclosure index, this paper finds three phenomena. First, companies with at least one financial analyst following do not have higher disclosure scores than those with no financial analyst following. Secondly, asset impairment disclosure scores are low in average. Thirdly, there is no positive relation between the total disclosure level and asset impairment disclosure scores.

This thesis examines the consequences of an increased institutional involvement in the recently emerging lending business known as peer-to-peer lending (P2PL). Since the P2PL business itself is a type of originate-to-distribute (OTD) lending model – in which the originator never carries the risk for the loans – this thesis investigates the effects it can have on the quality of the screening of potential borrowers, and if it could create a misalignment of interests between different stakeholders in the P2PL market. It also examines how the information asymmetry in the screening process is affecting moral hazard behavior and adverse selection problems. From the empirical research – which was gathered from interviews with significant participants in the Swedish P2PL market and the financial market as a whole – the authors find that an increased institutional involvement seems to come hand-in-hand with an increased loan volume, which creates incentives for the P2PL companies to ease their screening of borrowers and thus decreasing the average quality of the loans they originate. Furthermore, it shows evidence of great similarities between the current P2PL market and the sub-prime mortgage market that was the cause of the financial crisis in 2008. By comparing different geographic P2PL markets the thesis is providing the reader with four development phases that the P2PL markets seem to follow.