Past theoretical research has explored whether bribes paid by firms to government officials are greater under a decentralized bureaucracy where the firm faces numerous government officials or under a monopolistic one. Presumably, bribes are bid down in the former as officials compete for bribes. However, a tragedy of the commons could occur where decentralized officials "overgraze" and charge higher bribes than a single bureaucrat would. Using the BEEPS I, a firm level survey covering 24 transition countries, the chapter 1 examines whether reported bribe payments by firms are higher when firms face numerous officials or only a single one. We find that bribe payments are higher under a more decentralized bureaucratic structure. In chapter 2 we investigate the link between private market competition and bribery. Greater competition could lower profits thereby limiting the amount corruption since rents are lower but greater competition could also provide more incentives for firms to pay bribes to obtain advantages over their rivals. We consider bribes to obtain government contracts. Using the BEEPS III dataset on 27 transition countries and the Censored Quantile Regression methodology we empirically found that as the number of competitors increases the amount bribes paid tend to increase as well. We also found that this relationship follows an inverted U. The marginal effect increases with the amount of bribes paid up to a maximum, then decreases, but remains positive. We believe that this relationship is driven by more competitors raising demand for these contracts. In chapter 3 we investigate the association between corruption and two types of investment. Past research focuses only on the total level of investment. Using the same dataset as used in chapter 2, we obtain mixed results. Using a tobit model, we find evidence that corruption "greases the wheels" of physical investment but has no significant effect on the level of R&D investment. However, results from a probit model suggest that corruption does negatively impact whether or not the firm undertakes R&D. These findings indicate corruption can affect not only the level but also the decision of whether to invest. They also show that these effects might differ across the type of investment so that the "grease wheels" and "sand wheels" perspectives are not incompatible as most the studies using the aggregate level of investment tend to imply.

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Group decision-making and equity predictions are topics that are interesting for academic research as well as for business purposes. Numerous studies have been conducted to assess the quality of forecasts by financial analysts, but in general these studies still show little evidence that it is possible to generate accurate predictions that in the long run create, after transaction costs, profits higher than the market average. This thesis investigates an alternative approach to traditional financial analysis. This approach is based on Internet group decision-making and follows the suggestion that a group decision is better than the decision of an individual. The research project follows a mixed-methods approach in the form of a sequential study with a field experiment. Different groups—consisting of lay people, but also financial professionals—were formed purposefully in different group designs to generate equity forecasts. The field experiment was conducted following an e- Delphi approach with online questionnaires, but also in-depth interviews with all participants. Data from financial analysts was used to compare the predictions from the groups with actual results of share prices. The data from the experiment suggests that there are different variables, in terms of the individual characteristics of the participants, which indicated significant impact on the quality of equity predictions. The predictions of some participants (e.g. “PID-S-plus” rated participants) are apparently of significantly higher accuracy. The findings from the study indicate that intuition plays a significant role in the decision-making process not only for lay people, but also for financial analysts and other financial professionals. However, there are observable differences in the intuitive decision-making of lay people and experts. While it was possible to observe that intuition is interpreted as “random guess” by poor predictors, it was found that good predictors base their intuition on several factors—even including fundamental and macroeconomic considerations. The findings of the experiments led to an explanatory model that is introduced as the ‘Deliberated Intuition’ Model. The model of deliberated intuition which is proposed here views prediction as a process of practice which will be different for each individual. The model proposes that a predictor will decide, consciously or semi-consciously, when they feel ready to rely on gut-feeling, or to undertake more analysis. Generally, it appears to contribute to a good prediction to think about the problem in different ways and with various techniques. The experiment indicated that (online-) groups are not per se better than individuals. The Deliberated Intuition Model might help to prepare better group settings and improve prediction quality. Apparently a combination of rational and intuitive techniques leads to the best prediction quality.

Todo cuidado foi dispensado para respeitar os direitos autorais deste trabalho. Entretanto, caso esta obra aqui depositada seja protegida por direitos autorais externos a esta instituição, contamos com a compreensão do autor e solicitamos que o mesmo faça contato através do Fale Conosco para que possamos tomar as providências cabíveis. / Submitted by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2017-08-24T17:45:14Z No. of bitstreams: 1 000064497.pdf: 844828 bytes, checksum: c5bbbfd8444424bf54dd2a0f54923a64 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Marcia Bacha (marcia.bacha@fgv.br) on 2017-08-24T17:47:45Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 000064497.pdf: 844828 bytes, checksum: c5bbbfd8444424bf54dd2a0f54923a64 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-24T17:48:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 000064497.pdf: 844828 bytes, checksum: c5bbbfd8444424bf54dd2a0f54923a64 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1995-08 / In a model of two open economies with intertemporal optimization, we characterize optimal paths toward convergence and show that the richer country achieves higher utility than it would in autarchy, while the poorer country's convergence toward the steady state is speeded up. However, the short-term effects of free trade and free capital flows on the richer economy are negative in terms of wages and consumption. The richer country will maintain its assets in the poor country indefinitely.

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Legal regulation of crowdfunding in the Czech Republic The thesis deals with the legal regulation of crowdfunding in the Czech Republic as well as in the European Union with emphasis on the investment type of crowdfunding, mostly for purpose of identifying all relevant legal acts and evaluating their form and application in terms of suitability and sufficiency. The first part generally addresses explanation of the term crowdfunding itself, the etymological interpretation, its origins, the historical development and the concepts of crowdfunding with other relative and superior terms. This section also includes division of crowdfunding into individual types and subtypes. Each of them is explained separately including examples of already existing crowdfunding platforms. The second part comprises of all legal acts and other regulation applicable to most of crowdfunding platforms and, in more detail, discusses legislation relevant to the investment type of crowdfunding (equity-based and securities-based crowdfunding). These come from several areas of financial law. The focus of the work is aimed at legal regulation of payment services, financial instruments (including prospectus regulation) and collective investment. The thesis reflects both national and EU legislation, including their relation through...

I examine the motivations of mutual fund families when deciding what mutual funds to launch, when to launch them, and how they are going to be launched. I begin by analyzing the influence of investor preferences on the flow to open-end mutual funds by associating flow to a fund with the degree to which the fund has an in-favor or trendy name. Results show that funds which conform to market-wide trends generate significantly higher inflows compared to less trendy funds. In my third chapter I examine the decision to launch a fund and show that investment companies have motivation, in the absence of any investment ability, to launch a trendy fund. Launching a trendy fund is beneficial to the fund family, generating additional revenue through fee collection, but is potentially harmful to investors with trendy fund startups underperforming non-trendy fund startups by over 1% per year. My fourth chapter examines the process of mutual fund incubation and shows that funds generate greater inflows post-incubation as a result of investors' positive response to incubation period performance. However, incubation appears to be used for reasons beyond generating a track record of performance. Specifically, fund families are more likely to release underperforming incubated funds if they are struggling to attract inflows to a large objective class.

To determine the association between military expenditure (ME) and public investment efficiency, I regressed a measure of public investment effectiveness upon a measure of ME in a cross-section of 59 developing countries. A strong association was only observed for Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the main explanations for the strong association is a relatively big government which was accompanied by government operations being inefficient and corrupt. This served as a reason to separately observe group of regions with relatively small and big governments. The results confirmed that the effect of ME on public investment effectiveness in the group with a relatively big government is negative whereas the effect is positive in group of region with small governments. Thus, it confirms that the increase of ME is not always negative but can in some cases improve the effectiveness of public investment.

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