Sustainability has started to play a greater role on the financial market and a larger number of investors are searching for financial products that contribute to the environment and the sustainable development. However, the numerous definitions of sustainable investments and green funds make the investment decision-making process difficult for investors and allow companies to “greenwash” their products. In order to facilitate the investment process for investors and at the same time contribute to sustainable development, the EU adopted the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) on 10 March 2021 as part of the Union’s sustainable finance strategy. The SFDR introduces a set of harmonized rules for financial market participants regarding their integration of sustainability-related aspects in their investment process, including different product classification levels, such as “light green” and “dark green”. Apart from the fact that the regulation means enhanced transparency, it is possible that the new product classifications will have an impact on the definition of sustainable funds and the environmental, social, governmental (ESG) investment strategies currently used by financial market participants. Additionally, the appropriateness of the new product classes in view of the aims of the SFDR could be discussed. The purpose of this thesis has been to examine the product specific disclosures of the SFDR and their implications on funds integrating sustainability, by using the legal dogmatic methodology and the EU teleological methodology. In order to be classified as an art. 8, or light green, it seems as if it is not enough for a fund to simply integrate ESG aspects into the investment process, rather the fund has to apply several investment strategies that consider ESG. For funds wishing to be considered as an art. 9, or dark green, it appears as if impact investing or sustainability themed investing could be two applicable approaches. Moreover, the sustainable investment-definition provided by the regulation contains explicit criteria, thus making it easier for investors to understand sustainable investments. Furthermore, the increased regulation and reporting requirements might contribute to less greenwashing, which in turn will benefit the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. However, while the product specific disclosures appear to be aligned with the objectives of the SFDR, there are several uncertainties related to the definitions and classifications that prevent the regulation from fully achieving its goals. / Hållbarhet har kommit att spela en allt större roll på finansmarknaden och allt fler investerare efterfrågar nu finansiella produkter som bidrar till miljön och den hållbara utvecklingen. Men de många definitioner som finns gällande hållbara investeringar och gröna fonder försvårar beslutsprocessen för investerare samt gör det möjligt för företag att använda sig utav ”greenwashing”. För att underlätta investeringsprocessen för investerare och även bidra till den hållbara utvecklingen antog EU den s.k. Förordning om hållbarhetsrelaterade upplysningar som ska lämnas inom den finansiella tjänstesektorn (SFDR) den 10:e mars 2021, vilken utgör en del av Unionens strategi för en hållbarare finansmarknad. SFDR innehåller harmoniserade regler för finansmarknadsaktörer gällande integreringen av hållbarhetsaspekter i investeringsprocessen, inklusive olika produktklassificeringar, såsom ”ljusgröna” och ”mörkgröna” produkter. Förutom att den nya regleringen innebär ökad transparens är det möjligt att de nya produktklassificeringarna kommer att ha en inverkan på definitionen av hållbara fonder samt de investeringsstrategier finansmarknadsaktörer i dagsläget använder sig av för att integrera hållbarhet. Utöver detta kan även produktklassificeringarnas lämplighet diskuteras mot bakgrund av förordningens ändamål. Syftet med detta arbete har varit att undersöka de produktspecifika upplysningskraven i förordningen och dessas inverkan på fonder som beaktar hållbarhetsaspekter, med hjälp av den rättsdogmatiska metoden samt den EU-rättsliga teleologiska metoden. För att klassas som en art. 8, eller ljusgrön fond, förefaller det som att det inte är tillräckligt för en fond att enbart integrera hållbarhet i investeringsprocessen utan snarare måste fonden använda sig utav flera olika hållbarhetsstrategier. För fonder som önskar att bli klassificerade som en art. 9, eller mörkgröna, verkar det istället som att s.k. ”impact” fonder eller tematiska fonder med hållbarhetsfokus är typiska exempel. Utöver detta innehåller förordningen en definition med uttryckliga kriterier gällande vad som är en hållbar investering, vilket underlättar investerares förståelse för hållbara investeringar. Dessutom kan den ökade regleringen och rapporteringskraven bidra till mindre ”greenwashing”, vilket i sin tur gynnar FN:s globala hållbarhetsmål och Parisavtalet. Men samtidigt som produktklassificeringarna tycks vara i linje med SFDR:s mål innehåller både definitionerna och klassificeringarna ett flertal oklarheter som hindrar förordningen från att helt uppnå sina mål.

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Yes / This paper examines the existence of dynamic spillover effects across petroleum based commodities and among spot-futures volatilities, trading volume and open interest. Realized volatilities of spot-futures markets are used as inputs to estimate a VAR model following Diebold and Yilmaz (2014, 2015) and distinguish dynamic spillovers in total and net effects. Results reveal the existence of large and time-varying spillovers among the spot-futures volatilities and across petroleum-based commodities when examined pairwise. In addition, speculative pressures, as reflected by futures trading volume, and hedging pressures, as reflected by open interest, are shown to transmit large and persistent spillovers to the spot and futures volatilities of crude oil and heating oil-gasoline markets, respectively.

Uma característica marcante da recente crise financeira que ocorreu entre 2007 e 2009, conhecida como \"A Crise do Subprime\", foi quão rapidamente se propagou por todo o mundo. Entretanto, a maior parte da evidência empírica até o presente momento mostra que no início da crise (jun/07 - ago/08) a resposta das economias emergentes foi limitada. Este trabalho corrobora este fato, bem como a rápida saída da crise, para um grupo de países emergentes em acelerado processo de desenvolvimento: Brasil, Rússia, Índia e China, os BRICs. Encontramos ainda evidências de que a China exerceu, principalmente durante a crise, forte impacto positivo nos BRICs, o que nos levou a concluir que este foi um fator importante para que fossem menos afetados, quando comparados com economias desenvolvidas como os EUA. Também mostramos que países dentre os BRICs cuja atividade econômica apresenta maior semelhança - Brasil X Rússia e Índia X China - são afetados de modo geral de forma análoga e observamos ainda evidência de notáveis ligações financeiras entre os países do grupo. Por último, notamos que variáveis reais dos BRICs responderam com menor intensidade aos efeitos da crise quando comparadas a variáveis financeiras do próprio grupo e variáveis reais de países desenvolvidos. Para o estudo, utilizamos modelos S-VAR, VEC e testes de cointegração em painel, este último para os modelos com variáveis macroeconômicas reais. Também utilizamos um índice de propagação de calor, desenvolvido pelo Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI), que mede a intensidade dos efeitos da crise nas variáveis para cada instante do tempo. / One of the main characteristics of the recent financial crisis that took place between 2007 and 2009, known as \"The Subprime Crisis\", was how fast it spread all around the globe. Nevertheless, most empirical evidence shows that at the beginning of the crisis (Jun/07- Aug/08) emerging markets\' response was limited. This present study corroborates this idea for a fast raising group of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China, the BRICs. We show as well how rapid these economies have managed to get out of the crisis and the not negligent positive impact that China had in all of them, especially during the crisis period. We infer that China\'s booming economy must have been one of the main factors that made the crisis\' impact reduced for the BRICs when compared to developed countries such as the US. We also show that countries among the BRICs that have more similarities - Brazil X Russia and India X China - were in general affected in an analogous way and we observe that there are strong financial links between group members. Last, we find that the crisis\' effect on real BRIC\'s macroeconomic variables was not as intense as those on developed countries or on BRIC\'s financial variables. For this study, we use S-VAR, VEC and Panel Cointegration Models. This last one was used for models with real macroeconomic variables. To draw our conclusions, we also utilize a Heat Index which has been developed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).This index is a measure of the crisis\' effects intensity on economic variables through time.

Uma característica marcante da recente crise financeira que ocorreu entre 2007 e 2009, conhecida como \"A Crise do Subprime\", foi quão rapidamente se propagou por todo o mundo. Entretanto, a maior parte da evidência empírica até o presente momento mostra que no início da crise (jun/07 - ago/08) a resposta das economias emergentes foi limitada. Este trabalho corrobora este fato, bem como a rápida saída da crise, para um grupo de países emergentes em acelerado processo de desenvolvimento: Brasil, Rússia, Índia e China, os BRICs. Encontramos ainda evidências de que a China exerceu, principalmente durante a crise, forte impacto positivo nos BRICs, o que nos levou a concluir que este foi um fator importante para que fossem menos afetados, quando comparados com economias desenvolvidas como os EUA. Também mostramos que países dentre os BRICs cuja atividade econômica apresenta maior semelhança - Brasil X Rússia e Índia X China - são afetados de modo geral de forma análoga e observamos ainda evidência de notáveis ligações financeiras entre os países do grupo. Por último, notamos que variáveis reais dos BRICs responderam com menor intensidade aos efeitos da crise quando comparadas a variáveis financeiras do próprio grupo e variáveis reais de países desenvolvidos. Para o estudo, utilizamos modelos S-VAR, VEC e testes de cointegração em painel, este último para os modelos com variáveis macroeconômicas reais. Também utilizamos um índice de propagação de calor, desenvolvido pelo Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI), que mede a intensidade dos efeitos da crise nas variáveis para cada instante do tempo. / One of the main characteristics of the recent financial crisis that took place between 2007 and 2009, known as \"The Subprime Crisis\", was how fast it spread all around the globe. Nevertheless, most empirical evidence shows that at the beginning of the crisis (Jun/07- Aug/08) emerging markets\' response was limited. This present study corroborates this idea for a fast raising group of emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India and China, the BRICs. We show as well how rapid these economies have managed to get out of the crisis and the not negligent positive impact that China had in all of them, especially during the crisis period. We infer that China\'s booming economy must have been one of the main factors that made the crisis\' impact reduced for the BRICs when compared to developed countries such as the US. We also show that countries among the BRICs that have more similarities - Brazil X Russia and India X China - were in general affected in an analogous way and we observe that there are strong financial links between group members. Last, we find that the crisis\' effect on real BRIC\'s macroeconomic variables was not as intense as those on developed countries or on BRIC\'s financial variables. For this study, we use S-VAR, VEC and Panel Cointegration Models. This last one was used for models with real macroeconomic variables. To draw our conclusions, we also utilize a Heat Index which has been developed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).This index is a measure of the crisis\' effects intensity on economic variables through time.

My dissertation consists of three distinct but related chapters on Energy Economics and Finance. My first chapter is an empirical evaluation of market conduct in global crude oil markets. "Hotelling rule" states that even in competitive equilibrium, price of an "exhaustible resource" exceeds its marginal cost due to the opportunity cost of depleting the non-renewable resource. This cost is called "scarcity rent". Oil price exceeds its marginal extraction cost significantly. This can be attributed to two different sources: effect of scarcity of oil on prices or exercising market power by OPEC (collusion). In this paper, I use Porter (1983) approach considering the possibility of "scarcity rent" component involved in the gap between price and marginal extraction cost in the oil market. The novelty of my approach is to empirically estimate scarcity rent using data on cost of production of oil. Two benchmark cases, where scarcity rent is either zero (non-exhaustible resources hypothesis (Adelman 1990)) or equal to minimum price-cost margin are considered. The results show that in both cases OPEC failed to cooperate effectively and in second case, market conduct estimated is closer to Cournot behavior. In the second chapter of my dissertation, we employ a real options approach to evaluate oil and gas companies' investment decisions in an empirical setup. We develop a theoretical model to derive testable predictions. A unique measure of investment costs is obtained from energy industry data vendors. This novel dataset contains details of contract terms and pricing for offshore drilling equipment, which constitute the major share of investment costs in offshore oil field development. The investment database is combined with financial and macroeconomic data, which enables us to perform a panel data analysis of investments' response to variations in investment costs and market variables such as the slope of futures curve, firms' past earnings, cost of capital and implied oil price volatility. Our results show that the larger firms, facing less financial friction, are more forward looking while the smaller firms, who have less access to capital markets, are more dependent on their past earnings. The third chapter of my dissertation is about the effect of recent natural gas production boom on U.S. manufacturing. Natural gas production in North America has increased significantly over the past decade causing the prices to plunge during past 5 years. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of low natural gas prices on energy intensive U.S. manufacturing industries using market data. I empirically evaluate the stock market reactions of publicly traded companies in energy intensive industries to arrival of new information about the unexpected price shocks in natural gas futures markets. My results show that the stock market does not react significantly to innovations in the expected price of natural gas, proxied for by monthly changes in natural gas futures contracts with a fixed maturity date. I then split the sample into two groups based on their expenditure on natural gas as a ratio of their total production value. The stock market valuation of companies in high "natural gas intensity" industries were positively affected by unexpected downward shocks in natural gas prices and the results are significant. / text

In recent times, the Internet revolution has spawned numerous innovative enterprises-virtual companies, and electronic markets. Electronic markets (or digital markets) are scalable web-based platforms for buyers, sellers, marketmakers, and brokers to carry out business transactions. Over the last two years, there has been a proliferation of such E-Markets on the web. In this thesis, we develop an E-marketplace, which we call IMAGINE (Intelligent Market with AGents and Integrative NEgotiations) that improves upon the existing state-of-the-art in several non-trivial ways. IMAGINE combines the best features of existing E-marketplaces with several innovations. The thesis describes the conceptualization, analysis, and design of IMAGINE and provides details of implementation of a prototype of IMAGINE at the Electronic Enterprises Laboratory, Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science. IMAGINE is a collaborative, co-operative, intelligent E-Market that maximizes the combined utility value of the all traders involved. IMAGINE has several distinctive features: • It uses an innovative business model, which is intelligent in the sense of perceiving the nature of the market and market forces and using this market intelligence in matching buyers with sellers and in determining the prices. • It uses integrative negotiations, which make it attractive for buyers and sellers to reveal their true business interests and valuations. • A sound and robust software architecture for a web-based implementation using best practices in object technology. • Implementation of a prototype of IMAGINE has been carried out using leading edge Internet technologies such as multi-agent technology, Jini, and Javaspaces.

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Despite the meaningful impact that credit ratings have on sovereign countries and financial markets, research has not fully explored the determinants of these ratings in many emerging markets (EMs). The aim of this study was to identify and quantify the extent to which different macroeconomic factors impact sovereign ratings. Based on a review of the literature, an analysis of rating agencies' methodology papers, and economic intuition, it was hypothesised that measures of wealth, economic growth, monetary stability, fiscal trajectory, external accounts and governance would predict EM credit ratings. This hypothesis was largely supported by regression models that anticipated actual ratings with predictive power comparable to extant research, but across a much broader set of EM countries. By identifying the key drivers of these ratings, the current research suggests several areas that policymakers can address to improve their own sovereign ratings. / Economics / M. Com (Economics)