<p><strong>Syfte:</strong> Studiens syfte är att analysera och undersöka om det finns något samband mellan den finansiella risken och lönsamheten. Det övergripande syftet är att se om valet av finansiell risk fungerar som finansieringsstrategi i verkligheten.</p><p><strong>Metod:</strong> Studien bygger på den deduktiva ansatsen där teorier kommer att testas och analyseras mot empiriska data tagna från årsredovisningar. Den kvantitativa metoden används då data från 305 stycken årsredovisningar ska användas för att finna om det finns samband och variation mellan finansiell risk och lönsamhet definierad som vinstmarginal, <em>Rt</em> och <em>Re</em>. Årsredovisningarna utgörs av sekundärdata som samlats in från databasen Retriever. De statistiska metoder som används är bland annat medelvärde, standardavvikelse, regressions- och korrelationsanalys, hypotesprövning och <em>t</em>-test.</p><p><strong>Resultat och slutsats: </strong>Såväl korrelation- och regressionsanalys som hypotesprövning och <em>t</em>-test visar att det finns samband mellan finansiell risk och lönsamhet definierad som <em>Re</em>. Studien visar även att det finns inget samband mellan finansiell risk och lönsamhet definierad som vinstmarginal eller <em>Rt</em>. Valet av finansiell risk fungerar alltså som finansieringsstrategi i verkligheten om lönsamheten är definierad som <em>Re</em>.</p><p><strong>Uppsatsens bidrag:</strong> Resultaten påvisade att det finns samband mellan finansiell risk och <em>Re</em> precis som teorin förespråkar.</p>

Syfte: Studiens syfte är att analysera och undersöka om det finns något samband mellan den finansiella risken och lönsamheten. Det övergripande syftet är att se om valet av finansiell risk fungerar som finansieringsstrategi i verkligheten. Metod: Studien bygger på den deduktiva ansatsen där teorier kommer att testas och analyseras mot empiriska data tagna från årsredovisningar. Den kvantitativa metoden används då data från 305 stycken årsredovisningar ska användas för att finna om det finns samband och variation mellan finansiell risk och lönsamhet definierad som vinstmarginal, Rt och Re. Årsredovisningarna utgörs av sekundärdata som samlats in från databasen Retriever. De statistiska metoder som används är bland annat medelvärde, standardavvikelse, regressions- och korrelationsanalys, hypotesprövning och t-test. Resultat och slutsats: Såväl korrelation- och regressionsanalys som hypotesprövning och t-test visar att det finns samband mellan finansiell risk och lönsamhet definierad som Re. Studien visar även att det finns inget samband mellan finansiell risk och lönsamhet definierad som vinstmarginal eller Rt. Valet av finansiell risk fungerar alltså som finansieringsstrategi i verkligheten om lönsamheten är definierad som Re. Uppsatsens bidrag: Resultaten påvisade att det finns samband mellan finansiell risk och Re precis som teorin förespråkar.

本研究顯著地發展時間轉換Lévy過程在最適投資組合的運用性。在連續Lévy過程模型設定下，槓桿效果直接地產生跨期波動度不對稱避險需求，而波動度回饋效果則透過槓桿效果間接地發生影響。另外，關於無窮跳躍Lévy過程模型設定部分，槓桿效果仍扮演重要的影響角色，而波動度回饋效果僅在短期投資決策中發生作用。最後，在本研究所提出之一般化隨機波動度不對稱資產報酬動態模型下，得出在無窮跳躍的資產動態模型設定下，擴散項仍為重要的決定項。 / This study significantly extends the applicability of time-changed Lévy processes to the portfolio optimization. The leverage effect directly induces the intertemporal asymmetric volatility hedging demand, while the volatility feedback effect exerts a minor influence via the leverage effect under the pure-continuous time-changed Lévy process. Furthermore, the leverage effect still plays a major role while the volatility feedback effect just works over the short-term investment horizon under the infinite-jump Lévy process. Based on the proposed general stochastic asymmetric volatility asset return model, we conclude that the diffusion term is an essential determinant of financial modeling for index dynamics given infinite-activity jump structure.

庫藏股制度於國外已經行之有年，特別是美國，早在1960年代即有庫藏股交易。我國上市上櫃股票可合法買回自己公司股票制度始於2000年所通過的上市上櫃公司買回本公司股份辦法，除了希望藉以提振東南亞金融危機中不振的股市表現，也賦予企業多一種能向投資人傳遞訊息的管道。本研究基於股票買回的各項假說，希望探究公司股票買回宣告的動機還有事件宣告後對於公司股價的影響效果，最後並檢視公司的宣告決策是否會受到前次購回宣告的表現所影響。 在假說驗證方面，以2000至2004年上市公司832家、上櫃公司236家曾經宣告買回自家股票的公司為研究樣本，輔以選出與買回樣本同時間的相同數量「未買回樣本」，透過1-way ANOVA測試與鑑別分析探討影響公司宣告股票買回的因素符合哪些假說的推論結果。此外，依據各項假說，進ㄧ步利用1-way ANOVA測試和複迴歸分析找出與公司事件宣告後股價異常報酬率之間的關係，接著以1-way ANOVA檢視最後一部份研究主題。經由上述的實證分析，本研究獲得以下主要結論： 1.公司買回自家的股票平均而言對於股價有正面的影響效果。 2.以上市公司而言，影響公司宣告股票買回的假說包括了：自由現金流量假說、個人所得稅節稅假說與財務槓桿假說。以上櫃公司而言則包括：自由現金流量假說、個人所得稅節稅假說與資訊信號假說。 3.以上市公司而言，股票買回宣告後，股價的正向異常報酬與：自由現金流量假說、管理者的誘因假說呈現相關關係。上櫃公司則包括：自由現金流量假說。 4.本次是否再度宣告股票買回會受前次買回的正向累積異常報酬率所影響。 / Stock price reactions on stock repurchase announcements among publicly traded corporations have been widely studied over 40 years in United States. Several hypothesizes were established and provide logical reasons for why corporations buy back their own stocks. References show large proportion of positive effect on post-announcement stock price after stock repurchase announcements from empirical researches. It is since 2000 that corporations are allowed to repurchase their own stocks legally in Taiwan. Although many efforts were put in surveying the post-announcement stock price reactions, few focused on examining how corporations’ repurchase decision would be influenced by different hypothesizes. Moreover, whether or not previous repurchase outcome may affect future repurchase judgments met contradict conclusion from recent studies. This research aims on exploring the two main topics which form 7 hypothesize. Data collecting from Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) database, Commercial Times and Economic Daily News contains publicly traded corporations had ever made stock repurchase announcement except financial and government institutions. The period of the study was from Aug. 6, 2000 to Jul. 31, 2004 and total number of announced corporations included was 832 listed on the Taiwan Security Exchange with 236 listed on the OTC separately. Hypothesis 1 to 6 were tested both from individual model using 1-way ANOVA Analysis and integrated model using Discriminate Analysis on Hypothesis 1 to 5, Event Study Analysis on Hypothesis 6. Hypothesis 7 was also verified with 1-way ANOVA Analysis. The empirical results show supports in several hypothesize which reflect corporations did concern free cash flow amount, leverage level, stock underpriced and dividend payout level issues when making repurchase announcement. The stock price after announcement has certain degree of moving correlation toward the same direction as free cash flow level and managerial stockholding level. Finally, previous repurchase outcome was found holding opposite relation with future repurchase judgments.

This thesis consists of four self-contained essays on the various topics in finance.  The first essay, The Information Content of The Systematic Risk Structure of Corporate Yields for Future Real Activity: An Exploratory Empirical Investigation, constructs a proxy for the systematic component of the risk structure of corporate yields (or systematic risk structure), and tests how well it predicts real economic activity in the United States. It finds that the systematic risk structure predicts the growth rate of industrial production 3 to 18 months into the future even when other leading indicators are controlled for, outperforming other models. A regime-switching estimation also shows that the systematic risk structure is very successful in identifying and capturing different growth regimes of industrial production.  The second essay, How Much Leverage is Too Much, or Does Corporate Risk Determine the Severity of a Recession? investigates whether financial conditions of the U.S. corporate sector  can explain the probability and severity of recessions. It proposes a measure of corporate vulnerability, the Corporate Vulnerability Index (CVI) constructed as the default probability for the entire corporate sector. It finds that the CVI is a significant predictor of the probability of a recession 4 to 6 quarters ahead, even controlling for other leading indicators, and that an increase in the CVI is also associated with a rise in the probability of a more severe and lengthy recession 3 to 6 quarters ahead.  The third essay, Asian Flu or Wall Street Virus? Tech and Non-Tech Spillovers in the United States and Asia (with Jorge A. Chan-Lau), using TGARCH models, finds that U.S. stock markets have been the major source of price and volatility spillovers to stock markets in the Asia-Pacific region during three different periods: the pre-LTCM crisis period, the “tech bubble” period, and the “stock market correction” period. Hong Kong SAR, Japan, and Singapore were sources of spillovers within the region and affected the United States during the latter period. There is also evidence of structural breaks in the stock price and volatility dynamics induced during the “tech bubble” period.  The fourth essay, Coping with Financial Spillovers from the United States: The Effect of U. S. Corporate Scandals on Canadian Stock Prices, investigates the effect of U.S. corporate scandals on stock prices of Canadian firms interlisted  in the United States. It finds that firms interlisted during the pre-Enron period enjoyed increases in post-listing equilibrium prices, while firms interlisted during the post-Enron period experienced declines in post-listing equilibrium prices, relative to a model-based benchmark. Analyzing the entire universe of Canadian firms, it finds that interlisted firms, regardless of their listing time, were perceived as increasingly risky by Canadian investors after the Enron’s bankruptcy. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2003

La thèse analyse les effets de la régulation sur le risque systématique d’un panel de 17 grands opérateurs de télécommunications européens entre 1997 et 2012. La relation régulation/risque est étudiée sous trois angles : (i) via la modification de la distribution des revenus de la firme, (ii) la promotion de l’intensité concurrentielle, et (iii) les choix de structure financière des opérateurs. Une modélisation de l’impact de la régulation sur la structure financière de la firme met en évidence que la hausse stratégique de l’endettement peut accroitre ou décroitre le risque systématique. Trois méthodologies d’estimations du risque sont utilisées : les MCO et le filtre de Kalman sans et avec effet TGARCH. Les trois aspects de la relation risque/régulation sont ensuite abordés via une étude en données de panel (couvrant les ratios financiers, l’intensité concurrentielle, l’intensité et le régime de régulation) puis en évaluant la réaction du risque aux annonces d’évolutions du cadre réglementaire européen (étude d’évènements). / The thesis analyzes the effects of regulation on the systematic risk of a panel of 17 leading European telecommunications operators between 1997 and 2012. The regulation / risk relationship is studied through: (i) the changes in the firm income distribution, (ii) the promotion of competitive intensity, and (iii) the operators' choice of financial structure. Modeling the impact of regulation on the financial structure of the firm highlights that strategic increase in debt may increase or decrease the systematic risk. Three estimation methodologies of risk are used: OLS and Kalman filter technics with and without TGARCH effect. The three aspects of risk / regulation relationship are then addressed through a panel data study (covering financial ratios, competitive intensity, and regulatory regime index) and then by an events study evaluating market reactions to announcements of changes in the European regulatory framework.

Mercados financeiros e finanças corporativas / Submitted by Cristiane Shirayama (cristiane.shirayama@fgv.br) on 2011-05-21T20:09:53Z No. of bitstreams: 1 61080100021.pdf: 1579434 bytes, checksum: 48ff2e28230b8ab64ed6919d82c68a84 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Gisele Isaura Hannickel(gisele.hannickel@fgv.br) on 2011-05-23T11:37:23Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 61080100021.pdf: 1579434 bytes, checksum: 48ff2e28230b8ab64ed6919d82c68a84 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Gisele Isaura Hannickel(gisele.hannickel@fgv.br) on 2011-05-23T11:39:50Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 61080100021.pdf: 1579434 bytes, checksum: 48ff2e28230b8ab64ed6919d82c68a84 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-23T12:18:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 61080100021.pdf: 1579434 bytes, checksum: 48ff2e28230b8ab64ed6919d82c68a84 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-03-15 / This study investigates the dynamics of earnings management of Brazilian companies previously to their going private operations in the period of 1999 from 2009. Three main issues are investigated: the type of operation (LBO or Acquisition), the periods in which occur significant manipulation and the legislation change in 2001, which main goal was to cohibit the abusive rebuying of shares by the companies that wanted to go private prior to the going-private operation. The sample is composed of 132 companies that went private from 1999 to 2009 and the data were quarterly collected ranging five years. We found evidence that the sample firms manipulated their earnings approximately two years before going private. Also, some results show that there are differences in the direction of earnings management depending on the type of public-to-private operation: LBOs firms tended to manage their earnings up, as well as the companies that were acquired by their controlling firms, while the other acquisitions showed signs of downward manipulations. Finally, we found evidence that the legislation change in 2001 not only might have changed the pattern of firm´s manipulation but has also increased earnings management right after its effective date. / Esse trabalho investiga a dinâmica da manipulação de resultados de empresas brasileiras que fecharam o capital no período de 1999 a 2009. Dentre os fatores investigados estão o tipo de fechamento (OPA, aquisição, aquisição por controladoras), o período de manipulação e a mudança que a Lei nº 10.303/2001 (cujo objetivo era coibir o fechamento branco de capital) teria sobre o gerenciamento. A amostra utilizada é composta de 132 empresas que realizaram o fechamento no período citado, sendo o ciclo de dados coletado para cada empresa de vinte trimestres. Foram achados indícios de que essas empresas manipularam seus ganhos aproximadamente dois anos antes de seu fechamento. Além disso, foram encontradas evidências de diferença de direção de manipulação para os tipos de fechamento: empresas cujos fechamentos ocorreram através de OPA, assim como as que sofreram aquisição por suas controladoras, tenderiam a manipular seus ganhos para baixo, enquanto que as demais aquisições se caracterizariam por terem seus resultados adulterados para cima. Por fim, foram achados indícios de que a Lei nº 10.303/2001 tenha alterado o comportamento de manipulação contábil das empresas e de que houve um aumento de manipulação logo em seguida à sua vigência.

This study shows that managers of short-term insurers may improve their financial results if they can identify and manage the factors that are critical to their financial results. The development and application of the concept of critical success factors are therefore used as a basis for this study. The study reviews the functions performed by short-term insurers, focusing on the effect these functions have on their cash flows. Selection and pricing of risk are discussed in detail. The underwriting cycle in South Africa, and several possible causes of the cycle are investigated. Reinsurance, claims handling and rilanagement expenses are important components of the cash flows of short-term insurers and are therefore examined in detail. The optimum risk level at various combinations of underwriting and investment income is empirically tested, using the financial results of several insurers. The study investigates different approaches to the measurement of financial success of insurers, and the return on shareholders' funds is found to provide the fairest and most reliable method. Empirical comparisons are made on the financial results of the insurers that participated in the study to distinguish between those that are financially successful and those that are not. To discover what the industry consider to be their critical financial success factors, a postal survey was done of key decision makers in the South African short-term insurance industry. Respondents identified several success factors, but did not include some success factors discovered during the review of the literature. Respondents apparently experienced difficulty in separating strategic issues from operational ones. The survey revealed that the pricing of risk is problematic for short-term insurers. The importance of the investment function is also underestimated by the industry. The study concludes that the combined systematic risk of the investment and underwriting portfolios is a critical success factor, along with the capital base of the insurer, the ability of the insurer to use the leverage provided by using policyholders' funds as free reserves and the size and direction of an insurer's cash flows. / Business Management / D. Com (Business Management)

Modern medical practice and science involve complex phenotypic definitions. Understanding patterns of association across this range of phenotypes requires co-analysis of high-dimensional association studies in order to characterise shared and distinct elements. In this thesis I address several problems in this area, with a general linking aim of making more efficient use of available data. The main application of these methods is in the analysis of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and similar studies. Firstly, I developed methodology for a Bayesian conditional false discovery rate (cFDR) for levering GWAS results using summary statistics from a related disease. I extended an existing method to enable a shared control design, increasing power and applicability, and developed an approximate bound on false-discovery rate (FDR) for the procedure. Using the new method I identified several new variant-disease associations. I then developed a second application of shared control design in the context of study replication, enabling improvement in power at the cost of changing the spectrum of sensitivity to systematic errors in study cohorts. This has application in studies on rare diseases or in between-case analyses. I then developed a method for partially characterising heterogeneity within a disease by modelling the bivariate distribution of case-control and within-case effect sizes. Using an adaptation of a likelihood-ratio test, this allows an assessment to be made of whether disease heterogeneity corresponds to differences in disease pathology. I applied this method to a range of simulated and real datasets, enabling insight into the cause of heterogeneity in autoantibody positivity in type 1 diabetes (T1D). Finally, I investigated the relation of subtypes of juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) to adult diseases, using modified genetic risk scores and linear discriminants in a penalised regression framework. The contribution of this thesis is in a range of methodological developments in the analysis of high-dimensional association study comparison. Methods such as these will have wide application in the analysis of GWAS and similar areas, particularly in the development of stratified medicine.

CHAPTER 1:<p>The default g-priors predominant in Bayesian Model Averaging tend to over-concentrate posterior mass on a tiny set of models - a feature we denote as 'supermodel effect'. To address it, we propose a 'hyper-g' prior specification, whose data-dependent shrinkage adapts posterior model distributions to data quality. We demonstrate the asymptotic consistency of the hyper-g prior, and its interpretation as a goodness-of-fit indicator. Moreover, we highlight the similarities between hyper-g and 'Empirical Bayes' priors, and introduce closed-form expressions essential to computationally feasibility. The robustness of the hyper-g prior is demonstrated via simulation analysis, and by comparing four vintages of economic growth data.<p><p>CHAPTER 2:<p>Ciccone and Jarocinski (2010) show that inference in Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) can be highly sensitive to small data perturbations. In particular they demonstrate that the importance attributed to potential growth determinants varies tremendously over different revisions of international income data. They conclude that 'agnostic' priors appear too sensitive for this strand of growth empirics. In response, we show that the found instability owes much to a specific BMA set-up: First, comparing the same countries over data revisions improves robustness. Second, much of the remaining variation can be reduced by applying an evenly 'agnostic', but flexible prior.<p><p>CHAPTER 3:<p>This chapter explores the link between the leverage of the US financial sector, of households and of non-financial businesses, and real activity. We document that leverage is negatively correlated with the future growth of real activity, and positively linked to the conditional volatility of future real activity and of equity returns. <p>The joint information in sectoral leverage series is more relevant for predicting future real activity than the information contained in any individual leverage series. Using in-sample regressions and out-of sample forecasts, we show that the predictive power of leverage is roughly comparable to that of macro and financial predictors commonly used by forecasters. <p>Leverage information would not have allowed to predict the 'Great Recession' of 2008-2009 any better than conventional macro/financial predictors. <p><p>CHAPTER 4:<p>Model averaging has proven popular for inference with many potential predictors in small samples. However, it is frequently criticized for a lack of robustness with respect to prediction and inference. This chapter explores the reasons for such robustness problems and proposes to address them by transforming the subset of potential 'control' predictors into principal components in suitable datasets. A simulation analysis shows that this approach yields robustness advantages vs. both standard model averaging and principal component-augmented regression. Moreover, we devise a prior framework that extends model averaging to uncertainty over the set of principal components and show that it offers considerable improvements with respect to the robustness of estimates and inference about the importance of covariates. Finally, we empirically benchmark our approach with popular model averaging and PC-based techniques in evaluating financial indicators as alternatives to established macroeconomic predictors of real economic activity. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished