Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-151). / Electronic reproduction. / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xi, 158 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Two important findings in the IPO literature, IPO's underpricing and poor long run stock returns, are investigated by using the sample of IPOs completed in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) from 1994 to 1999. The evidence suggests that Thai IPOs are underpriced and have poor long run stock returns. Rock 's (1986) model is employed to explain the underpricing of Thai IPOs. Rock's model is supported by the evidence of Thai IPOs. Past market conditions and the stock liquidity of the IPOs' industries are the main factors which affect investor demand for IPO shares. IPOs which go public in the hot market conditions (periods with high past market return) and IPOs which come from liquid industries (industries which have high stock turnover) attract more investor demand. These two factors are also positively correlated with IPO first day return. This suggests that investors have higher demand for IPOs which go public in the hot market conditions and IPOs which come from liquid industries because these IPOs are underpriced, and the underpricing of these IPOs is corrected during the first trading day. IPOs with low investor demand underperform their benchmarks in the long run. On the contrary, the long run returns of IPOs with high investor demand are not significantly different from their benchmarks. One possible explanation for the underperformance of IPOs with low investor demand is that these IPOs may be illiquid. The lack of demand during the first trading day may cause their first closing price to be different from their intrinsic value. This difference is gradually adjusted in the long run leading to the underperformance of these IPOs. This hypothesis is supported by the evidence. The sample of rights offerings announced in the SET between 1994 and 1999 also supports the role of liquidity in explaining the poor long run performance of issuers. The change in operating performance of IPOs from the IPO-year to the post-IPO years also has some power in explaining the long run underperformance of IPOs. IPOs which perform more badly after going public have poor long run returns.

This dissertation examines four specific aspects of capital structure and dividend policy. The first issue concerns the determinants of capital structure dynamics. The primary objective is to examine whether stock returns are important factors in firm???s capital structure choice, and if so, whether this effect is persistent. In so doing, we use a data set which (1) avoids the complexity of tax rates faced by previous studies, (2) we introduce new variables that are unique to Oman, and (3) we distinguish empirically between bank debt and non-bank debt. We find stock returns are a first order determinant of capital structure. Firms do show some tendency to rebalance towards their target capital structure. However, the impact of stock returns dominates the effects of rebalancing. We also find new evidence that firms do take countermeasures to offset changes in their leverage that stem from equity value variations, but do so at a low speed. The next topic studied concerns the ex-dividend day behaviour. We investigate this issue using a unique data set where there are no taxes on dividends and capital gains and stock prices are decimalized. In this economy, any price decline that is smaller than the dividends can not be attributed to taxes and price discreteness. We find that the stock price drops by less than the amount of dividends and there is a significant positive ex-day return. We are able to account for our results using market microstructure models. The third issue investigated is the stock price reaction to dividend announcements. Tax-based signaling models argue that dividends would not have information and be informative if it is not for the higher taxes on dividends relative to capital gains that they apply to shareholders. The absence of personal taxes in Oman presents a valuable opportunity to test this prediction. Our results show that the announcements of dividend increases (decreases) are associated with a stock price increase (decrease) which contradicts the tax-based signaling models. The final chapter analyzes the determinants and stability of dividend policy of financial and non-financial firms. Investigating this issue is important for at least two reasons. First, Omani firms distribute almost 100% of their profits in dividends which led the Capital Market Authority (CMA) to issue a circular (number 12/2003) arguing that firms should retain some of their earnings for ???rainy days???. This allows us understand the characteristics of firms that pay dividends. Second, firms are highly levered mainly through bank loans which render the role of dividends in reducing the agency costs less important. Unlike most previous studies, we include both dividend paying and non-dividend paying firms to avoid a selection bias. We find that there are some common factors that determine dividend policy of both financial and non-financial firms and there are some factors that affect only non-financial firms. We also find that the factors that influence the probability to pay dividends are the same factors that drive the amount of dividends paid for both financial and non-financial firms. We document that non-financial firms adopt a policy of smoothing dividends while financial firms do not have a stable dividend policy.

This thesis focuses on the development of a forecasting model for short- to medium-term electricity spot prices, based on modelling the dynamics of the supply and demand functions. It is found that the equilibrium assumption frequently adopted in electricity price models does not always hold; to overcome this problem, a notional demand process derived from the market clearing condition is proposed. Not only is this demand process able to capture all the price-affecting factors in one variable, but it also allows the equilibrium assumption to be satisfied and a spot price model to be built, using any appropriate form of hypothetical supply function. In addition, this thesis presents a model for approximating and modelling the bid stacks by capturing the points that govern their shape and location. Integrating these two models provides a realistic model that has a mean absolute percentage error of approximately 19% and 24% for week- and month-ahead forecasts respectively, when applied to the New South Wales (NSW) half-hourly electricity spot prices. Additionally, the density forecasting evaluation method proposed by Diebold et al. (1998) is employed in the thesis to assess the performance of the model. Besides the development of a spot price model, a two-part empirical study is made of the prices of NSW electricity futures contracts. The first part of the study develops a method based on the principle of certainty equivalence, which enables the market utility function to be recovered from a set of futures market quotes. The method is tested with two different sets of simulated data and works as expected. However, it is unable to obtain useful results from the NSW market quotes due to the poor data quality. The second part uses a regression method to investigate the relationship between futures prices and the descriptive statistics of the underlying spot prices. The result suggests that futures prices in NSW are linear combinations of the median and volatility of the final payoff.

This dissertation examines four specific aspects of capital structure and dividend policy. The first issue concerns the determinants of capital structure dynamics. The primary objective is to examine whether stock returns are important factors in firm???s capital structure choice, and if so, whether this effect is persistent. In so doing, we use a data set which (1) avoids the complexity of tax rates faced by previous studies, (2) we introduce new variables that are unique to Oman, and (3) we distinguish empirically between bank debt and non-bank debt. We find stock returns are a first order determinant of capital structure. Firms do show some tendency to rebalance towards their target capital structure. However, the impact of stock returns dominates the effects of rebalancing. We also find new evidence that firms do take countermeasures to offset changes in their leverage that stem from equity value variations, but do so at a low speed. The next topic studied concerns the ex-dividend day behaviour. We investigate this issue using a unique data set where there are no taxes on dividends and capital gains and stock prices are decimalized. In this economy, any price decline that is smaller than the dividends can not be attributed to taxes and price discreteness. We find that the stock price drops by less than the amount of dividends and there is a significant positive ex-day return. We are able to account for our results using market microstructure models. The third issue investigated is the stock price reaction to dividend announcements. Tax-based signaling models argue that dividends would not have information and be informative if it is not for the higher taxes on dividends relative to capital gains that they apply to shareholders. The absence of personal taxes in Oman presents a valuable opportunity to test this prediction. Our results show that the announcements of dividend increases (decreases) are associated with a stock price increase (decrease) which contradicts the tax-based signaling models. The final chapter analyzes the determinants and stability of dividend policy of financial and non-financial firms. Investigating this issue is important for at least two reasons. First, Omani firms distribute almost 100% of their profits in dividends which led the Capital Market Authority (CMA) to issue a circular (number 12/2003) arguing that firms should retain some of their earnings for ???rainy days???. This allows us understand the characteristics of firms that pay dividends. Second, firms are highly levered mainly through bank loans which render the role of dividends in reducing the agency costs less important. Unlike most previous studies, we include both dividend paying and non-dividend paying firms to avoid a selection bias. We find that there are some common factors that determine dividend policy of both financial and non-financial firms and there are some factors that affect only non-financial firms. We also find that the factors that influence the probability to pay dividends are the same factors that drive the amount of dividends paid for both financial and non-financial firms. We document that non-financial firms adopt a policy of smoothing dividends while financial firms do not have a stable dividend policy.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Vita.

Thesis (M. S.)--Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Maurizio Iacopetta; Committee Member: Olga Shemyakina; Committee Member: Tibor Besedes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Mestre em Agronomia)--Universidade de São Paulo, 1984. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-115).

Thesis (M.A.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Advertising, Public Relations, and Retailing, 2008. / "Committee members: Dr. Keith Adler, Dr. Constantinos Coursaris, and Dr. Mira Lee"--Acknowledgments. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Aug. 6, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 58-61). Also issued in print.