Redes Universiteit Maastricht. / Met lit. opg.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Västerås : Västerås universitet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser + 1 appendix.

This thesis presents three empirical analyses on the systematic risk exposure that global and domestic asset holders face. Each paper investigates a distinct source of macroeconomic risk, but they all stem from the premise that holding human capital and financial assets is risky. This ultimately affects agents' optimal consumption choices. The first paper, The International CAPM Redux, proposes a novel empirical model to price international assets. Building on recent advances in asset pricing research on currency markets, it documents that investors are compensated for bearing exposure to currency risk when investing in foreign equity, either directly or via delegated portfolios of international assets. The second paper, One Central Bank To Rule Them All, shows that while global investors demand a premium to bear risks associated with Federal Reserve decisions, there is no comparable result for other major central banks. This puzzling finding points to the uniqueness of the Federal Reserve for global investors, that does not simply stem from the size and importance of the U.S. economy. The third paper, Human Capital, Unemployment Risk and Asset Prices, relates the riskiness of human capital to uncertainty in the labour market and documents a role for unemployment as a determinant of human wealth. Sorting U.S. industry-level portfolios by differential exposure to unemployment risk yields a novel cross-section of average excess returns. High risk-premia are consistent with less income-constrained highly educated workers willing to take financial risk beyond hedging their labour income risk. Taken together, these three studies contribute to the empirical asset pricing literature and open the door to further theoretical and empirical research in the field.

A qualitative transcendental phenomenological methodology was used to identify the essence of healthcare workers' perceptions at the workplace. In-depth interviews were conducted on 25 physical therapists and physical therapist assistants consisting of over 214 years of clinical experience representing 11 clinical sites in the South Florida area. The perceptions towards their coworkers and managers during times of change were explored from a variety of angles and yielded an insightful essence of the work they do on a day to day basis as front-line medical professionals. There were eight major concerns identified as influential factors that impact job performance, coworker and manager relationships, and patient care in this segment of the healthcare system. Based on the essence derived from the therapists' and assistants' experiences, 14 functional propositions were posited and lay the foundation for future research. Managerial recommendations along with the Healthcare Workers Systematic Daily Flow Model were offered to guide in the development of the recommended initiatives.