This thesis explores the impact of two behavioural finance concepts, social psychology and psychology, on household financial decisions. Under social psychology, I investigate whether the variety and intensity of social engagement enhances stock market participation. With regard to psychology, I examine two behavioural biases. First, I investigate whether mental accounting influences portfolio choice in three asset classes and whether financial advice and housing tenure increase (decrease) the effects of mental accounts on portfolio choice. Second, I examine whether households’ self-reported housing wealth are anchored on published house price indices and whether anchoring bias is mediated by market information, mortgage refinancing decisions and social factors. The main contributions and findings in the three studies are as follows. First, although there is an elaborate body of research concerning the relationship between social engagement mechanisms and portfolio choice, most studies investigate specific mechanisms in isolation. Using three waves in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), I bring together five social engagement measures in one model and show that socially engaged individuals are more likely to participate in the stock market. Consistent with Granovetter’s (1973) theory of social networks I find that a weak tie (measured by social group involvement) has a positive effect on stock market participation whereas a strong tie (measured by talking to neighbours) has no effect. More trusting individuals are more likely to participate in the stock market, as are those who identify with a political party. In contrast, the degree to which religion is important appears to have little impact. These results are robust using different specifications. Overall, the results of this study demonstrate that the likelihood of stock market participation increases with the variety and intensity of social engagement. Second, despite the established theoretical underpinnings of mental accounting in behavioural portfolio theory (BPT) and recent extensions, not much is known about their implications in real life situations. I use a recent UK household survey, the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS), which has comprehensive information about financial assets to investigate whether there are differences in the ownership and portfolio share of three asset classes among individuals who exhibit no mental account, a single mental account and multiple mental accounts, and the conditional influences of financial advice, housing, cognitive ability, time preference and risk tolerance. Overall I find that mental accounting together with financial advice and housing tenure explain variations in both the probability of ownership and portfolio share in the three asset classes. Households that exhibit a single mental account have low share of investments in, and are less likely to own, a risky asset when compared to those that exhibit no mental account or exhibit multiple mental accounts. I also find that, when compared to having no mental account, exhibiting a single mental account or multiple mental accounts increases both the probability and investment share in a fairly safe asset but decreases portfolio share in safe assets. In addition, among those that exhibit a single mental or multiple mental accounts, financial advice decreases portfolio share in risky assets and fairly safe assets and increases portfolio share in safe assets. Housing tenure increases both the probability and portfolio share in risky assets, decreases portfolio share in fairly safe assets and increases portfolio share in safe assets. These results are consistent using multi-equation regressions, sub-samples, reparametrised variables and poisson regressions. Finally, as little is known about how households derive the self-reported house prices estimates that are commonly used to determine housing wealth, the third study examines whether households are anchored on published house price indices. The key conjecture is that, while assessing the values of their homes, homeowners place more weight on house price news at the expense of property characteristics and other market information. I find support for this hypothesis using sixteen waves of the BHPS, multiple methods, and both regional and national house price indices. I conclude that changes in self-reported housing wealth are anchored on changes in published house price indices. Specifically, ownership through a mortgage and greater financial expectations increase anchoring effects while mortgage refinancing decreases the effects. Moreover, use of money raised from refinancing for home investment, as opposed to other consumption purposes, has a positive association with change in self-reported house value and both uses reduce anchoring bias. In addition, I find that computer use increases anchoring bias and, among social engagement mechanisms, religiosity reduces anchoring while other measures have no effect. These results are robust to internal instrumental variables, national aggregate house prices, alternative indices and sub-samples.

Dans cette thèse, je fournis une évaluation empirique des relations entre les principales variables macroéconomiques qui animent le cycle économique. Nous traitons dans chacun des trois chapitres une question empirique en utilisant une approche économétrique bayésienne. Dans le premier chapitre nous étudions la contribution conditionnelle des taux de transition du marché du travail (le taux de retour en emploi et le taux de séparation). La littérature n'est pas parvenue à un consensus sur lequel des taux dominent la dynamique du marché du travail. Alors que Blanchard et Diamond (1990) ont conclu que la baisse de l'emploi en période de récession résulte d'un taux de séparation plus élevé, Shimer (2012), ainsi que Hall (2005), expliquent que les variations du chômage sont principalement expliqués par la variation du taux de retour en emploi. Notre résultat, obtenu grâce à une estimation d'un modèle VAR structurel, montre que l'importance de chaque taux de transition dépend des chocs qui ont frappé le marché du travail et de l'importance des institutions du marché du travail. Dans le second chapitre, nous évaluons l'impact de la réforme du marché du travail réalisée par le Président des États-Unis H. Hoover au début de la Grande Dépression. Nous montrons que ces politiques ont permis à l'économie américaine d'échapper à une grande spirale déflationniste. L'estimation d'un modèle DSGE à l'échelle agrégée, nous permet de comparer deux effets opposés que ces politiques impliquent : effet négatif dû à une baisse de l'emploi et l'effet positif dû aux anticipations inflationnistes qui sont expansionnistes quand l'économie est dans la trappe à liquidité. Les résultats dépendent de la règle de politique monétaire que nous supposons : le principe de Taylor ou le ciblage du niveau de prix. Le troisième chapitre est consacré à la relation entre le taux d'intérêt réel et l'activité économique qui dépend du nombre des participants aux marchés financiers. En utilisant un modèle DSGE et en permettant à la proportion de ces agents d'être stochastiques en suivant une chaîne de Markov, nous identifions les périodes historiques où la proportion était assez faible pour inverser la courbe IS. Pour le cas des États-Unis, nous montrons que cette relation est positive pendant la période de la Grande Inflation et pendant une courte période au début de la Grande Récession. Dans l'union européenne, la proportion de non­-participants a été augmentée pendant les années 2009-2015 mais seulement pour amplifier la corrélation négative entre le taux d'intérêt réel et la croissance de la production. / In this thesis I provide an empirical assessment of the relations between the main macroeconomic variables that drive the Business Cycle. We treat the empirical question that arises in each chapter using Bayesian estimation. In the first chapter we investigate conditional contribution of the labor market transition rates (the job finding rate and the separation rate) to unemployment. The literature did not have a consensus on which rate dominates in explaining the labor market dynamics. While Blanchard and Diamond (1990) concluded that the fall in employment during slumps resulted from a higher separation rate, Shimer (2012), as well as Hall (2005), explain unemployment variations by mainly the job finding rate. Our result, obtained through an estimation of a structural VAR model, shows that the importance of the transition rated depends on the shocks that hit an economy and hence the importance of the labor market institutions. In the second chapter, we assess the impact of the labor market reform of the US president H. Hoover implemented at the beginning of the Great Depression. We show that these policies prevented the US economy to enter a big deflationary spiral. Estimating a medium scale DSGE model, we also compare two opposite effects these policies lead to: negative effect through a fall in employment and positive effect though inflationary expectations which are expansionary when monetary policy is irresponsive to the rise in prices. The results depend on the monetary policy rule we assume: The Taylor principle or price level targeting. The third chapter is devoted to the relation between the real interest rate and the economic activity which depends on the number of asset market participants. Using a DSGE model and allowing to the proportion of these agents to be stochastic and to follow a Markov chain, we identify the historical sub-periods where this proportion was low enough to reverse the IS curve. For the US case, we report the studied relation to be positive during the Great Inflation period and for a short period at the edge of the Great Recession. In the EA, the proportion of non-participants has been increased during 2009-2015, but only to amplify the negative correlation between the real interest rate and output growth.

The research undertaken represents an in-depth study of gender and economics from a multi-disciplinary perspective. By drawing on economic, social policy and political science literature it makes an original contribution to the disciplines of economics and feminist economics by advancing ideas on a feminist theory of policy change and institutional design. Equally, the study develops a framework for a multi-method approach to feminist research with applied policy focus by establishing a pragmatic feminist research paradigm. By espousing multiple research philosophies, it extends understanding of gender differences in policy outcomes by connecting theories from feminist economics, feminist historical institutionalism and ideational processes. Jointly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council UK and the Scottish Government, this project attempts to answer three key questions: What is the relative position of men and women in the Scottish economy and how do childcare responsibilities influence these? Which institutions, structures and processes have been instrumental in embedding gender in Scottish economic policy? To what extent and how is the Scottish Government’s approach to economic policy gendered? Quantitative analysis reveals persistently disproportionate differences in men and women’s position in the labour market. Women remain over-represented in part-time employment and in the public sector in the 10years under investigation. Using panel data, the multinomial logistic regression estimation of patterns in labour market transitions equally reveal disproportionate gendered patterns, with families with dependent children 0-4years at a disadvantage to those without. Qualitative analysis indicates that these differences are partly explained by the fact that the unpaid economy still remains invisible to policymakers despite changes in the institutional design, policy processes and the approach to equality policymaking undertaken in Scotland. Unpaid childcare work is not represented as policy relevant and the way gender, equality and gender equality are conceptualised within institutional sites and on political agendas pose various challenges for policy development on unpaid childcare work and gender equality in general. Additionally, policymakers in Scotland do not integrate both the paid and unpaid economies in economic policy formulation since social policy and economic policy are designed separately. The study also establishes that the range of institutions and actors that make-up the institutional setting for regulating and promoting equality, influence how equality issues are treated within a national context. In Scotland, equality regulating institutions such as parliament, the Scottish Government, equality commission and the law are instrumental variables in determining the range of equality issues that are embedded in an equality infrastructure and the extent to which equality issues, including gender, are consequently embedded in public policy and government budgets. Significantly despite meeting all the attributes of an equality issue, unpaid care is not classified as a protected characteristic in the Equality legislation. These institutions can ameliorate, sustain or perpetuate the delivery of unequitable policy outcomes for men and women in the mutually dependent paid and unpaid economy. Thus, economic, social and political institutions are not independent from one another but are interrelated in complex ways that subsequently have material consequences on men and women in society. In summary, there are interlinkages between the law, labour market, the unpaid economy, the welfare state and gendered political institutions such that policy or institutional change in one will be dependent on or trigger change in another. These institutions are gendered, but are also interlinked and underpin the gender structure of other institutions to the extent that the gendered norms and ideas embedded in one institution, for example legislation or political institutions, structure the gendered dimensions of the labour market, welfare state, and the unpaid economy. By shedding light on institutional and political forces that regulate equality in addition to macroeconomic forces, the analysis reveals the important role of institutions, policy actors and their ideas as instrumental forces which constantly define, redefine and reconstruct the labour market experiences of men and women with significant material consequences.

Die vorliegende kumulative Doktorarbeit umfasst drei Arbeiten aus dem Bereich der empirischen Rechnungslegungsforschung. Die erste Arbeit untersucht die Rolle persönlicher Eigenschaften von Rechnungslegungsstandardsetzern bei der Entwicklung der Internationalen Rechnungslegungsstandards IFRS. Sie dokumentiert, dass in den IFRS insgesamt ein Rückgang der Bedeutung von Prinzipien gegenüber Regeln sowie ein Anstieg der Bedeutung des beizulegenden Zeitwerts im Zeitablauf zu verzeichnen sind. Zwischen Änderungen von IFRS-Eigenschaften sowie beruflichen und kulturellen Eigenschaften von Mitgliedern des International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) wird ein Zusammenhang festgestellt. Die zweite Arbeit widmet sich Ursachen und Folgen fehlerhafter Finanzberichterstattung im Rahmen des deutschen Systems der Durchsetzung von Rechnungslegungsregeln. Sie findet systematische Unterschiede in der Unternehmensführung von Unternehmen, bei denen fehlerhafte Finanzberichte festgestellt werden, gegenüber einer Kontrollgruppe. Weitere Ergebnisse lassen die Vermutung zu, dass die Aufdeckung fehlerhafter Finanzberichte Verbesserungen in der unternehmensspezifischen Aufsicht über den Rechnungslegungsprozess auslösen könnte. Die dritte Arbeit nutzt umfangreiche Befragungsergebnisse deutscher Privatanleger zur Untersuchung der Ursachen ihres Unternehmensüberwachungsverhaltens. Demnach üben Anleger, die ein geringeres Vertrauen in andere Anspruchsgruppen eines Unternehmens haben, zugleich eine geringere Unternehmensüberwachung aus. Darüber hinaus dokumentiert die Arbeit, dass Vertrauen und Unternehmensüberwachung in einem Zusammenhang mit dem Ausmaß der Teilnahme am Aktienmarkt und dem Bildungshintergrund der Anleger stehen. / This cumulative doctoral thesis consists of three papers within the field of empirical financial accounting research. The first paper examines the role of personal characteristics of accounting standard setters in the development of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). It documents that the full set of IFRS exhibited a decrease in the importance of principles relative to rules and an increase in its fair value orientation over time. Changes in IFRS properties are found to be associated with the professional and cultural background of International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) members. The second paper investigates determinants and consequences of erroneous financial reporting under the German financial reporting enforcement regime. The corporate governance of firms detected with erroneous financial reporting is found to differ systematically from that of control firms. Further results suggest that error detection might trigger improvements in firm-level accounting oversight. The third paper uses large-scale survey evidence from German individual investors to explore the determinants of their monitoring behavior. Investors who are less trusting in their fellow stakeholders are found to engage in less monitoring. Furthermore, trust and monitoring are documented to be associated with the stock market exposure and the educational background of investors.