The objectives of this thesis are: first, to investigate the impact of investor sentiment in UK financial markets in different investment intervals through the construction of separate sentiment measures for UK investors and UK institutional investors; second, to examine institutional herding behaviour by studying UK mutual fund data; third, to explore the causal relation between institutional herding and investor sentiment. The study uses US, German and UK financial market data and investor sentiment survey data from 1st January 1996 to 30th June 2011. The impact of investor sentiment on UK equity returns is studied both in general, and more specifically by distinguishing between tranquil and financial crisis periods. It is found that UK equity returns are significantly influenced by US individual and institutional sentiment and hardly at all by local UK investor sentiment. The sentiment contagion across borders is more pronounced in the shorter investment interval. The investigation of institutional herding behaviour is conducted by examining return dispersions and the Beta dispersions of UK mutual funds. Little evidence of herding in return is found, however strong evidence of Beta herding is presented. The study also suggests that beta herding is not caused by market fundamental and macroeconomic factors, instead, it perhaps arises from investor sentiment. This is consistent between closed-end and open-ended funds. The relation between institutional herding and investor sentiment is investigated by examining the measures of herding against the measures of investor sentiment in the UK and US. It suggests that UK institutional herding is influenced by investor sentiment, and UK institutional sentiment has a greater impact as compared to UK market sentiment. Open-end fund managers are more likely to be affected by individual investor sentiment, whereas closed-end fund managers herd on institutional sentiment.

In the first chapter, we analyze the role of market development, risk premium, and transparency as factors influencing the value of cash in firms listed as American Depository Receipts. Based on the method by Pinkowitz and Williamson (2002), our primary results are as follows. The market value of cash is greater on average for ADR firms than for U.S. firms, and within the ADR sample the value of cash is greater for firms based in less developed countries after 2007 financial crisis but not before. Together, the results suggest that the market development is especially important during more volatile periods. Further, the value of cash is negatively associated with the market risk premium. In addition, the relation between insider trading law execution and the value of cash is statistically insignificant for all periods, but corporate-level transparency as measured by the number of analysts is weakly negatively related to ADR firms’ cash value before 2007 after controlling for the fixed effects. The second chapter attempts to assess the relative importance of superior information and hedging in institutional trading in equity index futures in the Taiwan Futures market for the sample period of January to June 2012. Based on the methodology by Llorente, Michaely, Saar, and Wang (2002), we find that, for the market as a whole, significant informed trading or hedging frequently occur, and the opening minutes tend to be associated with a greater portion of trading motivated by hedging. More important to our purpose, for foreign institutions the absolute value of institutional order imbalance tends to be greater on days when the overall market’s informed trading is greater in the cases of regular contract on Taiwan composite index futures and electronic index futures, but for the dealer and domestic fund groups trading is not correlated with the overall market’s informed trading or hedging. An additional analysis of the relation between past institution trades and current returns provides some evidence implying institutions are informed, but the evidence can also be interpreted as their trades, which account for more than half of the overall trading, having an impact on subsequent trades.

This dissertation consists of 2 essays in the area of corporate finance. The title of my first essay is “Impact of Institutional Investors on Firms’ Financial Constraint and Liquidity”. We can find ample evidences in existing literature which show that institutional investors play a vital role in the corporate world. Many researchers have linked institutional investors to activism, monitoring benefits, mitigating the cost of debt using government bond, spin off activities and improving information asymmetry problem. In the first essay, I would like to add another dimension to institutional investors’ literature by examining institutional investors’ role in mitigating financial constraint problem in the firm. Institutional investors have large financial networks and make large financial investment in firms. Their presence might help firms attract external capital. I am using 2 financial constraint measurements; KZ index (Lamont, Polk, Saa-Requejo, 2001) and bank line of credit (Sufi, 2009). I am also adding additional measurement for financial constraint using notes payable. I find evidences to support the hypotheses that institutional investors’ presence and ownership mitigate financial constraints. The title of my second essay is “Long- and Short-Term Institutional Investors and Payout Policy”. In the second essay, I examine the relationship between the firms’ payout policy and the presence/ownership of certain type of institutional investors. I classify the types of institutional investors using Bushee’s (1998, 2001) classification of institutional investors. I find that the presence and the magnitude of long term institutional investors positively affect the likelihood and the magnitude of dividend. I also find that the presence and the magnitude of short term institutional investors positively affect the likelihood and the magnitude of share repurchases. This study suggests that the presence of different types of institutional investors can affect certain type of payout policy. Keywords: Transient; dedicated; monitoring; trading

Thesis advisor: Thomas J. Chemmanur / My Ph.D. dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay examines the effect of hedge funds on target shareholder gains in leveraged buyouts (LBOs). I find that the initial buyout premium is increasing in the preannouncement presence of hedge funds, measured as the fraction of target equity held by hedge funds before the announcement. Using a geographic instrument for the presence of hedge fund, I find that this relationship persists even after controlling for endogeneity. I further show that this effect holds only for active hedge funds and long-term hedge funds, and is stronger for management-led LBOs than for third-party LBOs. Overall, the findings suggest that hedge funds protect target shareholder interests in LBOs by using their hold-out power. The second essay examines the relation between expected market volatility and the demand for liquidity in open-end mutual funds. The empirical results are consistent with precautionary motives for holding liquid assets, i.e., fund managers tilt their holdings more heavily toward liquid stocks when the market is expected to be more volatile. This dynamic preference for liquid stocks is more pronounced among small fund families, low-load funds, funds whose past performance has been unfavorable, funds with high return volatility, growth-oriented funds, and high-turnover funds. I further show that this type of behavior is valuable for fund investors during high volatility periods because it has led to significantly (both statistically and economically) higher subsequent abnormal returns. The third essay, co-authored with Thomas Chemmanur and Gang Hu, directly tests Brennan and Hughes' (1991) information production theory of stock splits by making use of a large sample of transaction-level institutional trading data. We compare brokerage commissions paid by institutional investors before and after a split, and relate the informativeness of institutional trading to brokerage commissions paid. We also compute realized institutional trading profitability net of brokerage commissions and other trading costs. Our results can be summarized as follows. First, both commissions paid and trading volume by institutional investors increase after a stock split. Second, institutional trading immediately after a split has predictive power for the firm's subsequent long-term stock return performance; this predictive power is concentrated in stocks which generate higher commission revenues for brokerage firms and is greater for institutions that pay higher brokerage commissions. Third, institutions make positive abnormal profits during the post-split period even after taking brokerage commissions and other trading costs into account; institutions paying higher commissions significantly outperform those paying lower commissions. Fourth, the information asymmetry faced by firms decreases after a split; the greater the increase in brokerage commissions after a split, the greater the reduction in information asymmetry. Overall, our results are broadly consistent with the implications of the information production theory. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

Os investidores institucionais, tais como os fundos de pensão, são entidades que administram recursos de numerosos grupos de pessoas, e que, por isso, tendem a gerir grandes carteiras de investimento e a ter incentivos para se tornar bem informados. Por isso, espera-se que eles sejam bons representantes da classe de investidores sofisticados, ou bem informados, e que o aumento de sua presença no mercado de capitais melhore a velocidade do ajuste do preço, contribuindo para evitar ineficiências do mercado, como, por exemplo, a anomalia dos accruals (Sloan, 1996), que é um atraso na revisão dos preços diante da informação sobre a magnitude dos accruals do lucro. Assim, o objetivo deste estudo é analisar, em diversos países, o impacto da participação de investidores institucionais sobre a anomalia dos accruals. São formuladas quatro hipóteses: (i) a proporção de informações sobre o desempenho futuro da empresa refletida no preço de sua ação é positivamente relacionada com o percentual de participação societária dos investidores institucionais; (ii) quanto maior for o percentual da participação societária de investidores institucionais, maior será a qualidade do lucro; (iii) quanto maior for a value relevance do lucro, maior será a anomalia dos accruals; e (iv) quanto maior for a participação societária dos investidores institucionais, menor será a anomalia dos accruals. Para se atingir os objetivos, a bibliografia sobre investidores institucionais, investidores sofisticados e anomalia dos accruals é analisada e cotejada com a literatura sobre value relevance e qualidade do lucro, em especial com o de Dechow e Dichev (2002). A pesquisa empírica utiliza dados de empresas não financeiras listadas nas bolsas de valores da Alemanha, do Brasil, da Espanha, dos Estados Unidos, da França, da Holanda, da Itália, do Reino Unido e da Suíça, e cobre o período de 2004 a 2013. A amostra contempla entre 2.314 e 4.076 empresas, totalizando entre 15.902 e 20.174 observações, a depender do modelo estimado. São realizadas regressões com dados em painel, uma abordagem de equações aparentemente não relacionadas (Seemingly Unrelated Regression - SUR) e a aplicação do teste de Mishkin (1983). Constata-se que nos Estados Unidos e na Itália os investidores institucionais são mais bem informados que os demais, e que na Alemanha, nos Estados Unidos, na França e no Reino Unido eles exercem um papel de monitoramento, pressionando por lucros de qualidade superior. Não se constata, porém, relação positiva entre value relevance do lucro e anomalia dos accruals, nem entre participação de investidores institucionais e esta anomalia. O estudo enriquece a discussão sobre o mercado ser eficiente a longo prazo, mas apresentar anomalias no curto prazo; enfatiza a importância de o investidor ser capaz de converter informações em previsão e avaliação; discute o vínculo entre o papel de monitoramento dos investidores institucionais e a qualidade do lucro; e avalia a relação entre a atuação destes investidores e o prices lead earnings. / In view of the massive resources they manage, institutional investors (such as pension funds and insurers) tend to have large investment portfolios and equally large incentives to be well informed. It is therefore reasonable to see institutional investors as representatives of the class of sophisticated investors. The presence of institutional investors on the capital market is positively associated with the speed with which prices adjust to information, helping avoid market inefficiencies, such as accrual anomaly (a delay in price adjustment in relation to the available information on accruals). The objective of this article was to evaluate the impact of institutional investitor participation on accrual anomaly in different countries. To do so, we formulated four hypotheses: (i) the proportion of information on the future performance of a company reflected in its stock price is positively associated with the percentage of equity held by institutional investors; (ii) the greater the percentage of equity held by institutional investors, the greater the earnings quality; (iii) the higher the value relevance, the greater the accrual anomaly; and (iv) the greater the percentage of equity held by institutional investors, the smaller the accrual anomaly. We reviewed the literature on institutional investors, sophisticated investors and accrual anomaly and compared our findings with the literature on value relevance and earnings quality, especially Dechow and Dichev (2002). Our empirical research was based on data on nonfinancial firms listed on the stock exchanges of Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, the U.K., the U.S. and Switzerland, covering the period 2004-2013. The final sample consisted of 2,314 to 4,076 firms, with a total of 15,902 to 20,174 observations, depending on the model estimated. Panel regressions were performed using the seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) approach and the Mishkin test. In the U.S. and Italy, institutional investors were found to be better informed than other investors. In France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S., institutional investors played a strong monitoring role, pressuring firms to report earnings with higher quality. However, no positive association was found between the value relevance of earnings and accrual anomaly, nor between institutional investitor participation and accrual anomaly. The study sheds light on the question of long-term market efficiency and short-term anomalies, emphasizes the importance of investors being able to convert information into predictions and estimates, discusses the connection between institutional investor monitoring and earnings quality, and evaluates the relation between the presence of institutional investors and price lead earnings.

Earnings conference calls are salient sources of firm-specific information that provide both hard and soft information to investors. In this paper, I find that institutional investors participate more actively in earnings conference calls held by firms that receive less attention than their peers prior to conference calls. I construct a measure of relative inattention using the Bloomberg Heat Score, which captures the aggregate search activities of institutional investors at the firm level. Using a broad set of earnings conference call transcripts, I identify participants affiliated with institutional investors and their dialogue to examine the association between institutional investors' inattention and their activities during earnings conference calls. I show that institutional investors appear more often, ask more questions, and request more guidance in conference calls held by firms that receive less attention before the calls. Collectively, the results indicate that institutional investors compensate for the lack of firm-specific information with conference call participation, despite potential costs of publicly revealing their information acquisition.

The dissertation consists of two chapters on measuring firms technological profile. Patent data can be grouped into two primary generations. The first generation lead by the work of Schmookler (1966), Scherer (1982), and Griliches (1984), and the second generation led by Trajtenberg, Jaffe, and Henderson (1997) and Kogan et al. (2016). When combined, both generations data spans from nearly 1926-2010 and has made a meaningful impact on innovation research. In the first chapter, I propose a third generation of patent data. The third generation of patent data has two distinct contributions. First, it extends patent-firm ownership information beyond 2010 to 2016. The new dataset uses the established connections of previous datasets and builds on that information with additional data on firm names gathered from EDGAR. Second, it takes advantage of the information contained in the text of patents using text analysis. Using text analysis allows for greater flexibility over traditional measures. The second chapter investigates how ownership structure affects firm value. The previous literature has assumed more innovation is better, meaning the more innovation a business creates; the better off it is in the long-run. However, not all innovations are created equal. We contribute to the literature by investigating how institutional investors change future innovation, not in quantity, but diversity. Using several unique measures of technological diversification created from firm-level patent data, we show that institutional investors increase the focus on a firm’s future innovation. Our results are robust to the classification scheme. Ultimately, our results indicate institutional investors create value by encouraging firms to build on prior knowledge.

This study is an empirical examination of a new theory that links dividends to institutional ownership in a framework of both information signaling and agency costs. Under this theory put forth by Allen, Bernardo and Welch in 2000, dividends are paid out to attract tax-favored institutional investors, thereby signaling good firm quality and/or more efficient monitoring. This is based on the premise that institutions are considered sophisticated investors with superior ability and stronger incentive to be informed about the firm quality compared to retail investors. On the agency level, institutional investors display monitoring capabilities, and can detect and correct managerial pitfalls, thus their presence serves as an assurance that the firm will remain well run. The study provides a comprehensive analysis of the implications of the theory by testing various aspects of the relationship between dividends and institutional holdings. Unlike the prevalent literature on this topic, I give specific attention to the different types of institutional investors and their incentives to invest in dividend paying stocks. Moreover, I analyze the signaling and the agency effects on the market reaction to dividend initiations within the framework proposed by the theory. Finally, I test the smoothing effect institutions have on dividends by examining the firm's propensity to increase dividends given the level of institutional ownership. I find institutional holders to respond positively to dividend initiation announcements as they adjust their portfolios by buying or increasing their holdings of the dividend paying stock following the announcement. I also find that this response is displayed more strongly among tax-favored institutions. My test results also reveal that positive abnormal returns to dividend initiation announcements are a decreasing function of institutional holdings in the dividend initiating firm, and that this mitigating effect of institutional ownership on the market reaction to dividend initiations is stronger for firms with higher information asymmetry and more potential for agency problems. This evidence lends some degree of support to the tested theory. Additional support to lies in the test results of its smoothing hypothesis which reveal that as institutional ownership increases, the propensity of firms to increase dividends decreases.

<p>Background: The global capital markets have enlarged investment opportunities and thus also the sources of funds for companies which increasingly face global markets for their services and products. Huge capital movements show that investors are constantly searching ways to minimise risk and maximise returns. In the light of the substantial growth of assets in institutional funds, an important question for international finance is the degree to which institutional investors have diversified their portfolios internationally. </p><p>Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the international diversification of portfolio investments of institutional investors in Japan, the US and the UK and deepen into international diversification in portfolios of Japanese institutional investors. </p><p>Demarcations: Institutional investors can use their power directly in companies or indirectly through capital markets. In this thesis, I will not discuss corporate governance issues. Nor is it an aim of this thesis to try to find the optimal portfolio or the best performing portfolio. </p><p>Method: Secondary data in this study are based on several sources from academic literature as well as from public data and statistics. Primary data for this study include interviews and background discussions as well as my own calculations. Interviews were made in order to obtain more information and make a proper comparison. The interviews were held in Tokyo, Japan. </p><p>Conclusions: International diversification of portfolio investment of institutional investors tend to differ more between countries where the investors are based than between the type of investor in different countries. Institutional investors in UK tend to diversify their investments more internationally compared to Japanese and US counterparts. Japanese institutional investors tend to have very similar international diversification strategies. This can be explained by cultural aspects which traditionally have promoted risk averse and domestic investment strategies. Furthermore, there are reasons which make investment strategies more country contingent. Currency risk, level of knowledge and domestic investment opportunities have critical impact on international investments.</p>

Background: The global capital markets have enlarged investment opportunities and thus also the sources of funds for companies which increasingly face global markets for their services and products. Huge capital movements show that investors are constantly searching ways to minimise risk and maximise returns. In the light of the substantial growth of assets in institutional funds, an important question for international finance is the degree to which institutional investors have diversified their portfolios internationally. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the international diversification of portfolio investments of institutional investors in Japan, the US and the UK and deepen into international diversification in portfolios of Japanese institutional investors. Demarcations: Institutional investors can use their power directly in companies or indirectly through capital markets. In this thesis, I will not discuss corporate governance issues. Nor is it an aim of this thesis to try to find the optimal portfolio or the best performing portfolio. Method: Secondary data in this study are based on several sources from academic literature as well as from public data and statistics. Primary data for this study include interviews and background discussions as well as my own calculations. Interviews were made in order to obtain more information and make a proper comparison. The interviews were held in Tokyo, Japan. Conclusions: International diversification of portfolio investment of institutional investors tend to differ more between countries where the investors are based than between the type of investor in different countries. Institutional investors in UK tend to diversify their investments more internationally compared to Japanese and US counterparts. Japanese institutional investors tend to have very similar international diversification strategies. This can be explained by cultural aspects which traditionally have promoted risk averse and domestic investment strategies. Furthermore, there are reasons which make investment strategies more country contingent. Currency risk, level of knowledge and domestic investment opportunities have critical impact on international investments.