This dissertation consists of three essays on firms' behaviors under staggered treatment adoption. The first essay draws information from a micro-lender and a credit bureau to identify the causal effects of small loans on the financial health of a group of small U.S. business owners. To achieve this, we exploit temporal variations in the loan disbursements and use an estimation strategy that controls for potential biases due to treatment effect heterogeneity. The results suggest that even small loans are effective in generating lasting positive impacts on widely accepted financial health indicators, such as Vantage Score (Credit Score), Debt-to-Income Ratio, and Credit Utilization Ratio. We obtain similar robust results for subprime and startup borrowers, who are known to face difficulties in securing credit. The second essay combines unionization data from the National Labor Relations Board and financial data from Compustat to examine the causal effects of unionization on the financing decisions of publicly traded firms in the United States. In this essay, I exploit temporal variations in the election date of unionization across firms and use a dynamic difference-in- difference estimation strategy to identify the effects of unionization on a range of financial indicators, including the Debt-to-Equity ratio, market leverage, book leverage, long-term book leverage, net leverage and cash to asset ratio. I find that unionization negatively affect firms' financing decisions. For example, after unionization, firms rely less on leverage to raise capital. At the same time, unionization offers incentive to firms to hold more cash in hand. My analysis also suggests that the effects of unionization vary according to the political and institutional structure of the states in which firms operate. For instance, the impacts on the outcome variables are more pronounced for the firms in democrat-led states and for firms which operate in states without right-to-work laws. The effects of unionization are also more noticeable for multi-establishment firms versus one-establishment firms. In addition, we find that the effects vary according to the margin of support for unionization within a firm. The third essay examines the causal effects of unionization on innovation activities of publicly traded firms in the United States. As in the case of chapters 1 and 2, the analysis uses a dynamic difference-in-difference estimation strategy on a dataset that is compiled using information on unionization data from the National Labor Relations Board, financial data from Compustat and KPSS patent data. My analysis encompasses a wide range of innovation indicators, including the number of patents, number of forward citations, market value of patents, average citations, number of patents to RandD expenditures ratio, number of citations to RandD expenditures ratio, number of patents per 1000 employees, capital expenditures to sales ratio and RandD expenditures to sales ratio. The findings suggest a small positive impact of unionization on most of these innovation indicators, with the exception of market value of patents and number of patents to RandD expenditures ratio. I also find that the effects of unionization vary according to political orientations of states, industry type, firm size and firm age. The results demonstrate that the effects on innovation are more pronounced for smaller and younger firms and for firms operating in democrat-led states as well as manufacturing firms. / Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis is a collection of three self-contained essays that examine the firms' behaviors in contexts where not all the units received the treatment at the same point in time. In the first essay, we investigate how small loans affect the financial health of small business owners. By analyzing data from a lender and credit bureau, we identify the causal effects of receiving loans on the financial health of borrowers. The results indicate that even small loans have a positive and lasting impact on credit scores, debt-to-income ratios, and credit utilization ratios. This research also sheds light on the effects of loans on borrowers with less favorable credit status or those starting a new business, who often face challenges in accessing credit. In the second essay, the focus shifts to the impact of unionization on the financing decisions of publicly traded firms in the United States. We examine the causal effects of unionization on various financial indicators. The findings reveal a negative effect of unionization on metrics such as debt-to-equity ratio, market leverage, and book leverage. However, cash holdings experience an increase. Furthermore, the effects of unionization vary based on the political and institutional structure of the states where firms operate, as well as the margin of support for unionization within a firm. The impact of unionization is more pronounced in democrat- led/without right-to-work law states, multi-establishment firms and when the support for unionization is stronger among employees. In the third essay, we investigate the effects of unionization on innovation activities within publicly traded firms in the United States. By analyzing unionization data, financial data, and patent data, the study examines the causal effects of unionization on various innovation indicators. The results reveal a small positive impact of unionization on most innovation indicators, such as the number of citations, number of patents per 1000 employees as well as ratio of number of citations to RandD expenditures. However, the effects on market value of patents and number of patent-to-RandD expenditure ratios are not statistically significant. Moreover, the analysis considers factors like political orientations of states in which the firms operate, industry type, firm size and firm age. The findings indicate that the effects on innovation outcomes are more pronounced for smaller firms, younger firms, firms operating in democrat-led states and manufacturing firms.

Since the introduction of CSN (Centrala studiestödsnämnden/Swedish Board of StudentFinance), the amount of students entering higher education has drastically increased. Along-term investigation has been conducted by the Swedish Financial Department(Finansdepartementet) in order to identify potential ways of improvement of the Swedishstudy aid system. A financial incentive proposition was made to decrease the graduationage, which CSN has rejected on the basis of limited effect, additionally, CSN stated thatreasons for late graduation are unknown.To investigate potential reasons for late graduation a “Potential system misuse”hypothesis was developed which intended to explain the trade-off students have to facewhen starting university studies - early graduation and no savings or late graduation, butsignificant savings for the future life. Further advantages or disadvantages of early or latestart of university studies have been analysed.This research was aimed to provide objective and empirical support on the claims madeby the CSN in their response to the government’s investigation into the Swedish studyaid system. The purpose of this research was to examine if a financial incentive wouldprovide significant effect on possible earlier average graduation age and to identify towhat extent are economic reasons for late graduation age unknown. Furthermore, twohypotheses concerning CSN loan taking not as intended (potential system misuse) andamount of savings having an impact on such a misuse have been analysed.The research has considered examples from neighbouring Nordic countries as well as theUnited States in order to consider strengths and weaknesses of each system. Suchcomparison has helped to identify what seems to be working in order countries and whatcould perhaps be adapted in the Swedish system too.A quantitative method of research has been adapted since it seemed the most appropriateand effective in order to gather a significant amount of data from a sample (UmeåUniversity students) to draw conclusions about the general population (students takingCSN study aid in Sweden). A non-probability, convenience sampling procedure has beenadapted, with clear arguments presented why it was deemed to be the most appropriatefor the purpose of this research. A sample of 301 responses allowed significant analysisto be conducted.With this research and a hypothetical scenario created the authors were able to concludethat writing off student loans could have a significant effect on the graduation age,especially since it was favourably seen by older students in the research. The reasons forlate start of university studies have been identified, but not limited to, having strongpositive correlation with taking CSN loan not as intended and value of one’s combinedsavings. Empirical support has indicated that while the majority (53.1%) of students wereusing CSN loan as intended, according to our data approximately half of all studentsmisuse the CSN loan. Furthermore, a significant correlation between high value ofsavings and using CSN not as intended has been found.