The economic reforms in Jordan during the last two decades have highlighted and promoted the role that non-financial firms play within the Jordanian economy. The ability of firms to play this role is in major part determined by the structure of the financial system in which they operate, and in particular whether this financial system is able to make capital available efficiently to those firms that need it. Whether this is the case can be investigated by analysing the impact of firm characteristics on some of the most important financial decisions taken by these firms, and how these decisions are influenced by the presence of market imperfections. The thesis examines the relation between the financing and investment decisions, where the effect of financial constraints on the firm’s investment decision is investigated. In particular, this thesis focuses on how financial constraints affect different firms by investigating the extent to which the reliance on internal cash flow is affected by firm characteristics such as size, age, dividend payout ratio, and market listing. We find that Jordanian firms are financially constrained, but that these constraints do not appear to be related to firm characteristics. Further, results show that Jordanian firms use debt rather than equity to finance their investment. The second empirical chapter focuses on the main determinants of firms’ capital structure. Here the results show that Jordanian firms follow the pecking order theory, where profitability and liquidity have a negative impact on the level of debt. Size and market to book value have a positive impact, supporting the view that there are significant constraints on debt financing since indicators of the financial health of the firms affect their capital structure ratio. There is also evidence that ownership structure affects the firm’s access to debt. The final empirical chapter examines the impact of firm characteristics on dividend policy, and shows that profitability and market to book value have a positive impact on dividend policy, implying that firms with better access to capital or credit pay dividends. This implies that firms retain earnings in order to ensure that they have sufficient capital to invest, confirming the initial result that Jordanian firms are financially constrained. There is also evidence of the impact of ownership structure, consistent with the predictions of agency cost theory, while institutional investors appear to follow the prudent-man restrictions, being positively associated with firms that pay dividends. This thesis confirms the presence of market imperfections that have a significant influence on the financial decisions taken by Jordanian firms. The consistent evidence of the importance of retained earnings shows that these firms face substantial constraints in terms of their access to external funds, despite the reforms to the Jordanian financial system over the last two decades.

Financial asset prices reflect investor's perspectives over the current and future situation of a firm, an industry, a country and ultimately, the entire economy. For this reason, how financial asset prices are driven has been a fundamental economic question. Specific market characteristics such as the number of sellers and buyers, investors valuation perceptions, market availability of other assets and legal and technical properties are some of the features that affect asset prices. When the same asset is traded at different venues, these specific characteristics may vary, following a certain degree of heterogeneity across buyers and sellers. The direct consequence is that transaction prices of the same asset differ across markets. However, prices will also not drift apart, since arbitrage opportunities would arise, reducing or even eliminating the differences. Prices of similar securities linked to a single latent price, as derivative markets, for instance, present the same behaviour. Price differences among markets observed at high frequencies are an indication that venues incorporate new information in an unlike way. The structure and design of a market impacts its behaviour, liquidity, effciency, and hence how prices are discovered. The task of identifying the leading markets and understanding how the price dynamics occurs are the main objectives of the price discovery analysis. Chapter 1 introduces the research subject of price discovery, motivating the importance of what this thesis proposes and the results and conclusions obtained. Chapter 2 explains in details the main methodologies used to measure price discovery and the important results in the empirical literature. Chapter 3 motivates the data set this thesis uses, with institutional background details and specific market and firm characteristics. We also present in details the steps we follow to deal with standard issues of high frequency data, such as outliers and errors on a tick-by-tick database and non synchronicity of prices at different markets. Chapter 4 extends the standard price discovery model to estimate the information share (IS) accounting for the information content of both common and preferred non US stocks, their American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) counterparts traded on the New York Stock Exchange and ARCA, and the exchange rate. We gauge the significance of price discovery in the home and foreign markets, through common or preferred stocks. One of the main critiques on the IS methodology is that it does not deliver a single measure when there is contemporaneous correlation among markets. We propose an ordering invariant methodology that delivers a single measure of IS.We find that the foreign market is more important than the home market for the price discovery of Petrobras, the Brazilian stated-owned oil giant, and Vale, one of the largest mining companies in the world. Additionally, the Brazilian market has lost significant importance after the 2008/2009 financial crisis. During this period, common and preferred stocks shared a single common factor, with voting premium being a stationary process. Chapter 5 investigates instantaneous and long-run linkages between common and preferred shares traded at both domestic and foreign markets. We develop a market microstructure model in which the dynamics of the different share prices react to three common factors, namely, the efficient price, the efficient exchange rate, and the efficient voting premium. We show how to identify the structural innovations so as to differentiate instantaneous and long-run effects. First, we obtain dynamic measures of price discovery that quantify how prices traded at different venues respond to shocks on the common factors. Second, we are able to test whether shocks in the efficient exchange rate change the value of the firm. Third, we test whether shocks on the efficient voting premium have a permanent effect on preferred shares. We implement an empirical application using high-frequency data on six Brazilian large companies. We find that, in the long-run, a depreciation of the Brazilian currency leads to a depreciation of the value of the firm that exceeds the expected arbitrage adjustment. In addition, a positive shock on the voting premium yields a positive impact on the value of the firm. Our price discovery analysis also reveals that one trading day suffices to impound new information on all share prices, regardless of the venue they trade at. Finally, Chapter 6 concludes.

This Thesis is dedicated to the variance decompositions from the VAR model un- der the Diebold, Yilmaz (2012) methodology combined with the Baruník, Křehlík (2017) method of frequencies that was used to create traditional and directional spillover tables to be compared under different frequencies. Diverse markets vari- ables were used for the analysis during the period 1/6/1999 to 29/6/2018. The S&P 500 Index represented the financial markets, EUR/USD and YEN/USD rep- resented the Forex markets, and eight types of commodities: Crude Oil, Natural Gas, Gasoline, and Propane represented energy commodities and Corn, Coffee, Wheat, and Soybeans represented food commodities. This analysis contribute to understanding of the dynamic frequency connectedness in case of a differentiated system of markets. The main finding was the strongest short-frequency reaction to shocks in case of all variables, which is opposite behavior than usually observed in banking sector frequency dynamics analyses. JEL Classication: F12, F21, F23, H25, H71, H87 Keywords: connectedness, financial market, forex market, commodity market, systemic risk, spillovers, frequency analysis Author's e-mail: 93414233@fsv.cuni.cz Supervisor's e-mail: barunik@fsv.cuni.cz

Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (M.S.) in Resource Economics and Policy--University of Maine, 2004. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-107).

Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ. 55-60)

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2006. / "December 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-64). Online version available on the World Wide Web. Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2006]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-110). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (p. ix-xxxii) and index.