No / The purpose of this paper is to present a critical viewpoint on the negative aspects of market, price and cost transparencies to consumers in terms of its costs. It adopts an inter-disciplinary approach from the marketing, economics and accounting literature. The paper explores market transparency in the ever-changing world and uses brand names like Starbucks and iPhone to illuminate instances where imperfect markets are supported by consumers. Recognizing the role that the Internet plays in promoting price transparency, it espouses how extant information can add costs and risks to the consumer’s value judgement. Finally, the paper advocates that arbitrary judgements existing in cost accounting make it difficult to compare unit cost. This could result in consumers paying extra money to benefit from cost transparency. This paper argues that three main issues may arise in providing unit cost to the consumers. First, transparency entails built-in costs, whether they are in taxes or product prices. Second, in accounting, unit cost information is currently not equitable between businesses. Finally, the paper argues that extra time and effort in making sense of unit cost information lead to questions about the viability of transparent costing. The arguments for transparency have been widely discussed, supported and promoted by many. While negative aspects are known to businesses, few consider the consumer’s perspective. By amalgamating evidence and arguments from different disciplines, this paper lends value, providing a critical perspective where transparent unit cost revelation can be more costly and less viable than what is assumed.

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<p>This dissertation comprises two essays on over-the-counter (OTC) markets, covering both the primary and secondary markets for municipal bonds.</p> <p>In the first chapter, I explore a novel channel through which exchange-traded funds (ETFs) improve pre-trade price transparency and thereby retail investors' bargaining power in OTC markets. ETFs are required to daily disclose their full holdings, often along with their constituents’ end-of-day prices, which are good timely references for investors to negotiate with broker-dealers, particularly when the securities have not traded recently. I find that ETF-held bonds have significantly lower retail markups than those of bonds not held by ETFs. This effect cannot be explained by selection or ETFs' own trading activity but is driven by the daily disclosures by ETFs holding the bonds. During 2010--2021, retail investors saved over $200 million when trading ETF-held bonds. There is also a spillover effect to the primary market---when municipalities have outstanding ETF-held bonds, their new issues have lower yields and smaller price dispersion.</p> <p>In the second chapter, I both theoretically and empirically document a non-monotonic relation between local municipal bond mutual funds, or informed investors, and underpricing in the municipal bond market. Empirically speaking, offering yields are higher in states that have open-end municipal bond funds, and with larger aggregate fund size. However, holding local fund size constant, yields decrease in the number of funds. Such relations hold when local funds' primary market participation is instrumented with the similarities in characteristics of new issues and existing bonds in their portfolios. I further confirm my empirical findings with a security underpricing model that incorporates the imperfect signals available to informed investors. Despite facing higher borrowing costs, issuers benefit from local funds' certification resulting in both institutional and retail investors' higher demand in the primary market.</p>

Tellurium is one of the rarest metals in the earth’s crust. Increased demand for cadmium telluride photovoltaic cells along with an opaque pricing and quantity-reporting system, have recently caused high price volatility and a speculative bubble in the tellurium market, resulting in overstocking and depressed prices. In a longer perspective this may be a threat to cadmium telluride photovoltaics as a power-generating technology. This master thesis compares how actors may perceive news innovation in the opaque tellurium market compared to the more transparent molybdenum market. A quantitative analysis of industry news reporting on the two metals, combined with a SVAR impulse response analysis, helps me determine which actors and factors exert most influence on spot market prices. In the opaque tellurium market, relatively unreliable proxies of supply and demand are most frequent in the news reporting while having a big impact on prices, whereas the transparent molybdenum market uses more reliable variables – such as futures prices – and transparent supply information, whilst also relying on a frequent stream of dependable proxies to scope market sentiments. My findings lead me to recommend policy makers to implement measures to increase market transparency, which may be accomplished by extending the data-sharing regime of the REACH database to minor metal markets. Attempting to limit speculation in minor metal markets is perhaps too blunt a tool to fix an inherent problem of a free exchange-pricing mechanism. / Tellur är en av de mest sällsynta metallerna på Jorden. Ökad efterfrågan av kadmiumtelluridsolpaneler har nyligen orsakat stor volatilitet på tellurmarknaden. Ett opakt prissättnings-och kvantitetsrapporteringssystem har bidragit till att en prisbubbla bildats och spruckit, vilket resulterat i att marknadsaktörer köpt på sig stora lager till höga priser som de sedan inte kunnat sälja vidare. I ett längre perspektiv kan detta innebära begränsningar vid tillverkning av solcellsteknologi baserad på kadmiumtellurid, då ett volatilt pris kan göra nya tellurgruvprojekt alltför riskabla. Denna masteruppsats jämför hur en typisk marknadsaktör kan reagera på prisinnovationer i den opaka tellurmarkanden och den mer transparenta molybdenmarknaden. Metoden består av en kvantitativ analys av facknyheter rörande de två metallerna, varifrån variabler väljs till en SVAR modell med impuls-responsanalys. Urvalet av variabler är få och volatila på den opaka tellurmarknaden, medan den mer transparenta molybdenmarknaden har ett större utbud av variabler som kännetecknas av god transparens och relativ förutsägbarhet. Mina slutsatser leder mig till att rekommendera beslutsfattare att vidta åtgärder för att öka tellurmarknadens transparens genom EU-samarbetet, förslagsvis genom att göra anonymiserad data från REACH databasen tillgänglig för allmänheten. Samtidigt avråder jag från åtgärder som syftar till att minska spekulation, då implementering av en sådan policy kan bli både dyr och komplicerad.

台灣過去的競價制度與行情揭示受到兩檔限制的規範，導致撮合效率與交易公平性受到質疑，而部分未成交的最佳資訊也可能受到隱藏，導致真實資訊無法及時揭露，誤導投資人錯誤解讀資訊，反而有助長殺跌的疑慮。 近年來全球追求資訊透明化的趨勢使得我國的兩檔限制備受爭議，也引發一股改革的風潮。因此，台灣證券交易所於民國91年7月進行交易制度的調整，取消自民國74年來沿用的兩檔限制，而以瞬間價格穩定機制當作穩定股市的措施，並進一步增加未成交價量資訊的揭示，提升整體市場資訊揭示的質與量。 本文以上述的交易制度調整為研究主題，探討市場在面臨穩定機制改變與市場透明度增加的情況下，其價格行為之變化。藉此評估此次交易制度的施行成效，並分別選取市值最高與最低的30支個股為衡量績效指標值的對象，以瞭解新的交易制度對於所有股票皆有相同影響。 結果發現，就第一階段的取消兩檔、輔以瞬間價格穩定措施與揭露一檔的政策而言，整體樣本的波動性為顯著增加，而高低市值的股票則有截然不同的反應。低市值群組在交易制度調整訊息宣告時享有正的顯著報酬，且在市場績效的驗證上發現Hei & Heubel模型衡量的流動性獲得改善，支持流動性改善有助於提升證券價值的說法，顯示取消兩檔限制輔以瞬間價格穩定措施，並提升市場透明度的作法對低市值群組是較有利的。相對的，高市值群組則發現較不利的證據，衡量宣告日的證券異常報酬為不顯著，流動性與波動性指標則明顯轉差。此外，第二階段的揭露五檔將普遍提升市場整體的效率性，其中以低市值群組最為明顯，此外在波動性與流動性方面，發現高低市值有很明顯的對比與抵換關係，高市值為流動性轉差但價格波動減少，低市值則相反，綜合為整體樣本的變化則不明顯。 推論上述實證結果，可能原因在於高低市值群組本身特性不同，導致相同的交易制度變革有不同的影響。高市值本身屬於企業規模大、股價較高，資訊透明度與交易較熱絡的一個族群，而低市值股票為傳統產業股居多，為股市中較不受投資人關愛、流動性較低，資訊不對稱程度也較高的股票。因而，過去在兩檔限制下，揭示代理價格、隱藏真實資訊，導致投資人錯誤解讀資訊者，應屬低市值股票較為嚴重，預期在取消兩檔限制後，資訊不對稱提升的程度相對來的高。此外，從第二階段揭露五檔的效果看來，高低市值的效率性皆改善，但在流動性與波動性方面卻呈現對比的抵換關係，顯示增加市場透明度對於市場績效無絕對的好壞。

Financial markets perform two major functions. The first is the provision of liquidity in order to facilitate direct investment, hedging and diversification; the second is to ensure the efficient price discovery required in order to direct resources to where they can be best utilised within an economy. How well financial markets perform these functions is critical to the financial welfare of every individual in modern economies. As an example, retirement savings across the world are mostly invested in capital markets. Hence, the functioning of financial markets is linked to the standard of living of individuals. Technological advancements and new market regulations have in recent times significantly impacted how financial markets function, with no period in history having witnessed a more rapid pace of change than the last decade. Financial markets have become very complex, with most of the order execution now done by computer algorithms. New high-tech trading venues, such as dark pools, also now play outsized roles in financial markets. A lot of the impacts of these developments are poorly understood. In the EU particularly, the introduction of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) and advancements in technology have combined to unleash a dramatic transformation of European capital markets. In order to better understand the role of high-tech trading venues in the modern financial markets' trading environment generally and in the UK in particular, I conduct three studies investigating questions linked to the three major developments in financial markets over the past decade; these are algorithmic/high-frequency trading, market fragmentation and dark trading. In the first study, I examine the changing relationship between the price impact of block trades and informed trading, by considering this phenomenon within a high-frequency trading environment on intraday and inter-day bases. I find that the price impact of block trades is stronger during the first hour of trading; this is consistent with the hypothesis that information accumulates overnight during non-trading hours. Furthermore, private information is gradually incorporated into prices despite heightened trading frequency. Evidence suggests that informed traders exploit superior information across trading days, and stocks with lower transparency exhibit stronger information diffusion effects when traded in blocks, thus informed block trading facilitates price discovery. The second study exploits the regulatory differences between the US and the EU to examine the impact of market fragmentation on dimensions of market quality. Unlike the US's Regulation National Market System, the EU's MiFID does not impose a formal exchange trading linkage or guarantee a best execution price. This has raised concerns about consolidated market quality in increasingly fragmented European markets. The second study therefore investigates the impact of visible trading fragmentation on the quality of the London equity market and find a quadratic relationship between fragmentation and adverse selection costs. At low levels of fragmentation, order flow competition reduces adverse selection costs, improves market transparency and enhances market efficiency by reducing arbitrage opportunities. However, high levels of fragmentation increase adverse selection costs. The final study compares the impact of lit and dark venues' liquidity on market liquidity. I find that compared with lit venues, dark venues proportionally contribute more liquidity to the aggregate market. This is because dark pools facilitate trades that otherwise might not easily have occurred in lit venues when the spread widens and the limit order queue builds up. I also find that informed and algorithmic trading hinder liquidity creation in lit and dark venues, while evidence also suggests that stocks exhibiting low levels of informed trading across the aggregate market drive dark venues' liquidity contribution.

The European policy focus on smart grids implies their development as an indispensable part of the future power system. However, the definition of a smart grid is broad and vague, and the actual implementation of a smart grid can differ significantly, depending on the stakeholders involved.This work aims to inform policy makers, the electricity industry and researchers about stakeholder interests and the technical complexities involved by presenting smart grids via a techno-institutional framework. This framework takes account of the technical nature of the electricity transport and supply service as well as the institutional nature of electricity markets, stakeholder perspectives and sector regulation. In addition, this work presents potential revenues resulting from flexibility management in smart grids and proposes a way forward for smart grids and flexibility management in Europe. / <p>QC 20170925</p>

La notion de « concurrence » est traditionnellement associée au droit de la concurrence, entendu, dans sa vocation restrictive et européenne, comme le corpus gouvernant ententes et abus de position dominante. Si le droit de la concurrence a vocation à saisir les marchés financiers en vertu du droit commun, force est toutefois d’observer que, animé par une spécificité concurrentielle, le droit financier s’est investi lui-même de la mission consistant à assurer ses propres intérêts concurrentiels : sur les marchés financiers, modèles archétypique de concurrence « pure et parfaite », la concurrence s’est développée non pas dans le cadre des règles communes de la concurrence, mais en dehors de ces dernières. C’est de cette « spécificité concurrentielle » du droit financier que la présente recherche, enrichie des apports notables du droit américain, se propose de rendre compte : bouleversant les monopoles traditionnels et favorisant une dynamique de compétition normative le droit financier organise la concurrence sur les marchés financiers d’abord. Sur le modèle du droit commun de la concurrence, le droit financier assure la protection de la compétition, ensuite, la transparence jouant à cet égard un rôle de premier plan. La confrontation du droit financier au principe de concurrence atteste d’une véritable « spécificité concurrentielle » en matière financière. De façon plus globale, l’analyse conduit à remettre en cause les ordres établis, suggérant une clé de compréhension renouvelée autour d’une nouvelle cohérence : le droit financier ne serait in fine pas réductible à une branche du droit de la régulation tourné par l’ouverture à la concurrence via la mise en œuvre de politiques dites de « libéralisation ». Corrélativement, le droit de la concurrence pourrait ne pas être que le droit de la protection de l’ordre concurrentiel sur le marché des biens et services, les « Grandes libertés » étant appelées à compléter un édifice commun voué non seulement à protéger la concurrence, mais également à l’organiser. Au final, et cela ne serait pas le moindre des paradoxes de souligner la spécificité du droit financier tout en relativisant la notion de « droit de la régulation », avec en point de mire un « droit de la régulation économique ». / The concept of « Competition » traditionally refers to Antitrust Law, heard in its restrictive and European meaning as governing both Trusts and abuse of dominant position. If Antitrust Law is intended to capture financial markets under common rules, however, it is observed that, animated by a competitive specificity, Financial Law has invested himself the task of ensuring its own competitive interest: financial market, competition archetypal models of « pure and perfect » competition, has not developed in the framework of common rules of competition, but outside them. It is precisely this kind of Financial Law’s « competitive specificity » that this research, enriched by notable contributions of US Law, proposes to report here : contesting classic monopolistic positions that have long characterized the financial infrastructures while sustaining a Law competition dynamic, Financial Law organizes competition in financial markets. More, not only does Financial Law organizes competition, it also protects competition, in the context of the influence of common Antitrust principles and market transparency.Financial Law and the competition principle comparison is rich teaching : it allows to demonstrate Financial Law’s competitive specificity. More broadly, the research led to challenge the « established order », suggesting a renewed key to understanding based on a new consistency: Financial Law would ultimately not be reduced to a branch of « Regulation Law », regulating the entire shot the opening to competition through the implementation of « Liberalization » policies. Correlatively, Antitrust Law may not be only confined in the protection of the competitive order on the goods and services market, « European freedoms of Mouvement » being then asked to complete a common building dedicated not only to protect the competition, but also to organize it. In the end, it would not be the least of paradoxes emphasizing the specificity of Financial Law while relativizing the notion of « Regulation Law », in focus with an « Economic Regulation Law ».

La question du niveau optimal de transparence sur les marchés financiers a trouvé un terrain de débat exemplaire : celui de la propriété économique des sociétés cotées. La conception de nouveaux produits financiers et le développement de stratégies activistes ont provoqué une remise en question des règles de déclaration de franchissements de seuils de contrôle. Cette thèse analyse les conséquences économiques des évolutions réglementaires, évalue la pertinence des déclarations de l’acquéreur, et propose un nouveau cadre conceptuel intégrant la possibilité de comportements stratégiques des acteurs concernés. Selon nos résultats empiriques, les informations contenues dans les annonces sont pertinentes, même lorsque le blockholder s’engage à rester passif. Notre modèle théorique suggère que les blockholders utilisent le délai de déclaration de manière stratégique, et qu’un raccourcissement de ce délai serait favorable aux actionnaires minoritaires. / The debate on the optimum level of transparency in financial markets found a major point of controversy: the ownership of public companies. The design of new financial products and the development of shareholder activism called the blockholding disclosure rules into question. This thesis analyzes the economic impact of changes in regulation, measures the value relevance of the content of blockholding announcements, and introduces a new conceptual framework allowing strategic behavior of the involved economic agents. According to our empirical results, the information disclosed by blockholders are value relevant, even when the blockholder commits to remain passive. Our theoretical model suggests that blockholders make a strategic use of the reporting window, and predicts that a shortening of the legal time period would be favorable to minority shareholders.

In the 2018 edition of the JLL Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI), Sweden was ranked the 10th most transparent real estate market in the world, categorized as ‘Highly Transparent’. For the most part, Sweden has held a similar position since the measurements started in 1999. Transparency on a real estate market generally attracts foreign real estate investments and tenants as well as increasing global competitiveness. It also streamlines work processes in many real estate professions through comprehensive real estate market information and comprehensible legal frameworks, transaction processes and methods of monitoring different sustainability metrics. This study explores the prerequisites for Sweden to attain a better position in the index by increasing its degree of real estate market transparency, with the long-term goal in having Sweden reaping more of the benefits in having a highly transparent real estate market. This is done in two ways. First is through a critical analysis of the index’s methodology for assessing if ranks and scores within the different index categories are produced fairly. Secondly, different industry actors are interviewed to identify in what areas Sweden lags behind compared to more transparent markets, in which way they would like to see transparency improved in Sweden and the main barriers in implementing projects that would increase real estate market transparency and ways of overcoming them. An examination of the index methodology shows a changing methodology from year to year, which indicates a steady increase in real estate market transparency in Sweden. Interview findings support a generally positive view on transparency, facilitating decision making for real estate investments, but the level of preferred transparency differs between net sellers and buyers. It is therefore questionable if increasing real estate market transparency would provide significantly increased utility for some market actors with longer investment horizons and market knowledge through extensive business networks. Main suggestions for improving real estate transparency in Sweden include measures for data standards, increasing the level of data disclosure and information platforms for such standardized, disclosed data. The study suggests that the main barriers for implementing this could be conceptualized as a Prisoners’ dilemma and that institutional bodies could act as trustworthy partners in further opening up real estate market information. / I 2018 års upplaga av rapporten JLL Global Real Estate Transparency Index (GRETI) rankades Sverige som den tionde mest transparenta fastighetsmarknaden i världen, kategoriserat som ‘Mycket Transparent’. Sverige har mestadels hållit en liknande position i rankingen sedan mätningarna startade år 1999. Generellt så medför transparens på ett lands fastighetsmarknad en ökad attraktion för investeringar och hyresgäster såväl som en ökad global konkurrenskraft. Det effektiviserar även arbetsprocesser i många yrken i fastighetsbranschen genom omfattande fastighetsmarknadsinformation och överskådliga legala ramverk, transaktionsprocesser och metoder för att utvärdera olika nyckeltal kopplat till hållbarhet. Denna studie undersöker förutsättningarna för Sverige för att kunna uppnå en bättre position i indexet genom att öka transparensen på landets fastighetsmarknad, med det långsiktiga målet att få Sverige att kunna åtnjuta fördelarna av att ha en mycket transparent fastighetsmarknad. Detta är genomfört på två sätt. Det första är genom en kritisk analys av indexets metodik för att utvärdera om rankingar och poängsättningen inom de olika indexkategorierna har producerats på ett rättvist tillvägagångssätt. Det andra är genom intervjustudier med olika branschaktörer för att identifiera de områden där Sverige släpar efter i förhållande till andra mer transparenta marknader och på vilket sätt de skulle vilja se att transparensen förbättras i Sverige samt de huvudsakliga hindren mot att kunna implementera projekt som skulle kunna öka transparensen på Sveriges fastighetsmarknad och sätt att överkomma dessa hinder. En undersökning av indexmetodiken visar på en ändrad metodik från år till år, som indikerar en stabilt ökande grad av transparens på Sveriges fastighetsmarknad. Intervjuresultaten stödjer en generell positiv syn på transparens som ett sätt att underlätta beslutsfattande för fastighetsinvesteringar, men nivån av föredragen transparens skiljer sig åt mellan nettoköpare och nettosäljare. Det ifrågasätts därför om en ökad transparens på Sveriges fastighetsmarknad skulle bidra med en signifikant ökad nytta för vissa branschaktörer med längre investeringshorisonter samt marknadskännedom genom sina stora branschnätverk. Huvudsakliga förbättringspunkter i termer av att öka transparensen på Sveriges fastighets-marknad inkluderar åtgärder för datastandarder, en ökad nivå av datadelning samt informationsplattformar för sådan standardiserad, delade data. Studien visar på att de huvudsakliga barriärerna för att implementera dessa åtgärder kan konceptualiseras som ett Fångarnas dilemma och att offentliga organ kan agera som pålitliga partners i att vidare öppna upp fastighetsmarknadsinformation.