Abstract This dissertation investigates the success of technology M&As. The research question is approached through four separate empirical essays, each of which assesses a different but interrelated issue of value creation of technology M&As. The approach used throughout the dissertation is to consider the motives of improving acquirer’s R&D activity through the acquisition of a technology firm and stress the role of the interaction between acquirer’s and target’s resources. The first two essays investigate the valuation consequences of M&As, while the following two essays examine pricing implications of M&As. The results indicate that technology M&As are successful in enhancing the acquiring firm’s R&D activities to the extent that it manifests as an increase in the stock market valuation of acquirer’s R&D spending and its higher future profitability. The results also demonstrate that investors do not fully recognize these benefits at the announcement of M&A. Therefore investors benefit from technology M&As in the long run when these benefits begin to materialize. Furthermore, the results show that even when compared to other possible motives, enhancing acquirer’s R&D activities is an important and successful motive for M&As, emphasizing the absorptive capacity of the acquiring firm in generating synergies from the combination of two firms. Overall, the findings of the dissertation provide more evidence on the success of mergers and acquisitions motivated by technology improvement. The thesis emphasizes the interaction between acquirer’s and target’s resources in creating synergies from M&As, with a focus on technological resources. The evidence also has important implications for the literature on the stock market valuation of R&D expenditures as it indicates that technology M&As can be considered an R&D investment with significant impacts on this activity.

Magister Commercii - MCom / Nearly half a century after independence, the Cameroon economy has experienced little or no growth in per capita incomes in spite of the enormous natural and human potentials of the country and in spite of the huge packages of aid and subsequent debt relief received from the international donor community, suggesting a more profound cause to the development problems facing the country. Under the current WTO rules-based system of multi-lateral trade management, Cameroon, like other poor countries, is left with limited scope for effective implementation of industrial and trade policies that could bail her out of her present predicament. Against this backdrop, this study seeks to explore the fundamental determinants of sustainable growth within the context of the Cameroonian economy. While acknowledging the role of openness to international markets in promoting growth, its effects could only be maximised with the attainment of certain threshold conditions such as the availability of basic skills, provision of vital infrastructure services and public goods, and good governance. In a nutshell, for development to happen, the country needs not only well functioning markets, but also good governments that do not steal the fruits of workers' labour. Drawing on the endogenous growth models, the study suggests that incentives for investment in knowledge capital, for infrastructure provision and for good governance could bail the country out of its low level traps, setting it on the path of sustainable growth in an evermore globalising world economy.

The Swedish market has over the past couple of years seen a large increase in companies going public through an IPO. At the same time the capital on the private equity market is increasing for each year which enables companies to stay private longer. Our research focuses on two main areas. First, we investigate if companies that enter the public market at an early stage in the company life cycle have worse aftermarket performance than companies that wait to go public. In our research we will define companies that went public at an early stage as younger than six years at the time of the IPO, based on Brown & Wiles (2015) research, and companies that delayed an IPO as older than six years at the time of the offering. The second area investigates whether the large capital increase on the private equity market have affected the long-run aftermarket performance of IPOs.  Our dataset consists of 746 Swedish IPOs from four different Swedish stock exchanges. We will collect long-run aftermarket performance data from companies that conducted an IPO between the years 2003-2018. The long-run aftermarket performance will be measured over a three-year period. Both buy and hold abnormal returns (BHAR) and monthly abnormal returns are used to analyze the aftermarket performance of the IPO firms. Our main findings are that Swedish IPOs generally underperform the reference market index in the long run. Additionally, we find that the underperformance is generated by companies that conduct an early IPO, which makes us question the IPO readiness of these young companies. We also show that profitability is a key determinant for greater IPO aftermarket performance. Lastly, we do not provide any support that the increase in capital on the private equity markets have any effect on the IPO aftermarket performance. However, the results indicate that companies who went public after the increase of capital perform worse. In our research we contribute with practical variables for retail investors to focus on when investing in IPOs and provide companies with useful information on how to increase the chances of a successful IPO.

<p>This dissertation studies the impact of mutual fund managers' beliefs on fund performance in the first chapter and focuses on the impact of firm behavior on stock performance in the second chapter. </p> <p><br></p> <p>In the first chapter, I utilize the Revealed Preference Theory to recover fund manager belief formation directly from their actual trading activities. By relating stock holdings in a fund's portfolio to past factor returns, I document three facts about managers' belief formation: 1. In contrast to belief extrapolation, a substantial fraction of mutual fund managers act as contrarian investors who expect lower factor returns after a good factor performance; 2. Whether a fund trades in an extrapolative or contrarian way is due to its managers' expectation biases rather than fund style investment strategy, fund catering strategy or fund risk preference; and 3. Contrarian managers generate superior performance, are more experienced investors, charge higher expense ratios, and manage smaller US equity funds. The top (contrarian) managers significantly outperform the bottom (extrapolative) managers by a return of 3.4% per annum after adjusting by FFC4 factor models.</p> <p><br></p> <p>The second chapter is co-authored paper with Yan Liu and Feng Zhang. In this chapter, we systematically replicate the bulk of long-run event studies conducted in the last three decades from 1990 to 2020 using extended samples and four long-run performance measures. The final sample contains 62 papers of long-run event studies and 148 corporate events. Our findings suggest that long-run return anomalies documented in the last three decades are not robust, and firms do not earn long-run abnormal returns following various types of corporate events. Only 2% of the 148 corporate events we replicate earn post-event abnormal returns that are statistically significant at the 5% level based on all the four performance measures, and the fraction further shrinks to 0% at the 1% significance level. Viewed together, our findings suggest that these long-run abnormal returns after corporate events are likely the result of data mining or "p-hacking".</p>

The Forest Resource Conservation and Shortage Relief Act of 1990 was the first federal attempt to impose a blanket restriction on export of roundwood to conserve existing forest cover and generate economic benefits from exporting processed wood. This study estimates the export demand equation for total export from United States Pacific Northwest, major species and destination countries using Johansen multivariate time series analysis. Cointegration rank is identified using Johansen cointegration test incorporating a structural breaks and normalized restriction is imposed to predict demand function under the framework of vector error correction model. All the variables under study are statistically significant with expected signs in the long run demand estimates. Roundwood export restriction policies are found to have impacted the export demand equation negatively. The study helps to understand the impact of log export restrictions policies along with other economic variables and assist in future policy formulations.

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Thesis (M.Sc. Agriculture (Agricultural Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / The agricultural sector is dominated by broiler production and it is the key source of animal proteins followed by beef. South Africa is described as a net importer of chicken meat, given that broiler consumption of broiler is greater than supply. Additionally, the South African Poultry industry has raised concerns regarding the high influx of cheap broiler imports into the domestic market. This led to an increase of the ad valorem tariff charged on poultry imports in April 2020 from a previous adjustment in September 2013. It is vital to understand how import tariff changes affect the broiler sector since little is known about how domestic broiler production is responding to an increased tariff. The study, therefore, attempted to determine the relationship between domestic broiler production, import tariff, domestic prices, and import volume. The study aimed to investigate the long-run relationship between import tariff, import quantity, domestic production, and prices (retail and producer) in the broiler sector of South Africa for the period (April 2010 – June 2020). Brazilian frozen chicken imports were selected for study given their relatively high domestic demand in South Africa. In addition, Brazil primarily faces the import tariffs charged by South Africa as the main country of origin for South African imports. The Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, Johansen Cointegration tests, and the Error Correction Model were used as analytical tools in achieving the study objectives. The results for the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test and the Johansen cointegration test showed that all variables were stationary at first difference and cointegrated. The ECM results concluded the existence of a long-run relationship between domestic production, ad valorem tariff, and import volume. As the tariff charged changes, the domestic production increased by 4% in the long run which might be deemed a small advantage in terms of the production scale and therefore not sufficient. The study recommended that strategies that reduce barriers of entry for small-scale farmers such as reduced production costs be implemented to boost domestic production. Lastly, since domestic production is responding positively to tariff adjustment, a thorough investigation is necessary to prove dumping allegations against broiler importers as this will enable the country to impose anti-dumping duties on all countries. / Agri SETA

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Neste trabalho estudamos a estabilidade assintótica de Lagrange para duas classes de sistemas, sob as hipóteses de detetabilidade fraca e de limitação do custo medio a longo prazo. Para sistemas lineares com saltos markovianos com rudo aditivo, a equivalência entre estabilidade e as condições mencionadas sera provada. Para sistemas dinâmicos generalizados, provaremos a estabilidade sob uma condição adicional / In this work we study Lagrange asymptotic stability for two classes of systems, under conditions of weak detectability and boundedness of the long run average cost. For Markov jump linear systems with additive noise, the equivalence between stability and the aforementioned conditions is proved. For generalized dynamical systems, we prove stability under an additional condition