Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 294-297).

Inaug.-diss.--Basel. / Vita. "Benutzte literatur": p. 57-59.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University, 2006. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-105). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Drexel University, 2007. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-83).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Ohio State University, 2000. / Adviser: Chung-Min Chen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Iowa, 2007. / Supervisor: Charles H. Whiteman. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 134-137).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, March 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Modelling and forecasting the stock market remains a challenge because of the high volatilities in individual stock prices and the market itself. Hence, this topic has received much attention in the literature since forecast errors represent the systematic risk faced by investors. Therefore, the ability to reliably forecast the future values of the shares would provide essential help in reducing that risk to those investors. The main aim of this research is to develop and calibrate a framework that can be used to model the daily share prices of the companies from the banking sector and hence produce informative and reliable one step-ahead forecasts using an adaptive BPNN. To this end, a novel forecasting algorithm is proposed. This algorithm proposes six steps that, when followed, possibly will lead to obtaining superior forecasting models for the share prices from the banking sector. In addition, novel technical indicators, and further information reflecting market knowledge were developed in this research so as to improve the modelling and forecasting share prices for the banking sector, alongside a novel application of the correctly identified turning points which provided an accurate assessment of the performance of the forecasting models. Furthermore, a selection of a set of inputs that are salient to financial data was identified. The research was to inform and improve share price forecasts of the banking sector. The historic open share prices for HSBC, Lloyds TSB, RBS and Barclays were used as case studies and the results give evidence to conclude that useable forecasting models can be obtained by employing the developed framework to the share prices from the banking sector in terms of the correctly identified turning points and the direction of the shares which are achieved more than 70% of the time. The empirical results show that using the market knowledge as input generally improved the modelling and forecasting of the share prices from the banking sector.

xi, 68 p. : ill. (some col.) / In this dissertation, I examine whether high disclosure costs explain why acquirers manage earnings before stock-for-stock acquisitions. Because stock-for-stock acquirers use their own shares to pay for targets' shares, stock-for-stock acquirers have incentives to manage earnings in order to boost their stock prices. I show that high disclosure costs lead to an equilibrium in which acquirers engage in earnings management in a manner consistent with target firms' expectations. As a result, I hypothesize that stock-for-stock acquirers with high disclosure costs are more likely to manage earnings before the acquisition than stock-for-stock acquirers with low disclosure costs. Using a sample of stock-for-stock acquisitions in the United States during the period from 1988 to 2009, I find a positive association between acquirers' proprietary disclosure costs and pre-acquisition abnormal accruals. In addition, I find a negative association between pre-acquisition abnormal accruals and abnormal stock returns around the acquisition announcement for acquirers with high proprietary disclosure costs but not for acquirers with low proprietary disclosure costs. Assuming that the market is efficient with respect to publicly available information, this evidence is also consistent with acquirers with high proprietary disclosure costs using abnormal accruals to manage earnings. Finally, I do not find a statistically significant association between the extent of acquirers' earnings management and the acquisition premium received by target shareholders. This is consistent with acquirers' earnings management not serving to extract wealth from target shareholders. Overall, the evidence in this dissertation suggests that earnings management by stock-for-stock acquirers is a rational response to targets' expectations when high disclosure costs prevent the acquirers from credibly signaling the absence of earnings management. / Committee in charge: Steven Matsunaga, Chairperson; Angela Davis, Member; David Guenther, Member; Van Kolpin, Outside Member

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a decade of financial deregulation on stock markets in term of market integration within Asia-Pacific countries. It investigates the existence of inter-relationships between five emerging and two developed stock markets in the region. Then, it examines the 'causal' relationships between each market and its country's economic fundamentals. The study is comprised of three major sections of empirical analysis: In the first section, three tests, correlation coefficients, unit root tests, and cointegration tests, are used to examine the short-term as well as long-term changes in the co-movement patterns of Asia-Pacific stock markets before and after financial deregulation. The second section employs VAR model to estimate and analyze the dynamic interdependencies among Asia-Pacific stock markets and trace out the effects of shocks to those markets. It also examines whether there is one or more dominant or particularly influential market within the region. Finally, the third section investigates the existence of interactions between stock returns and domestic economic fundamentals by applying causality tests. It focuses on the predictive content of historical information of stock returns in explaining economic variables, and hence, it tests whether the economic variables do or do not Granger-cause stock returns, and vice versa. The study provides a number of interesting and important results which can help us to understand the nature of stock market integration as well as evolution of financial integration in this increasingly important region. The study suggests that financial liberalization has enhanced the inter-relationships among Asia-Pacific stock markets, and that therefore high capital controls account for instances of low interactions. The study shows that the effects of a shock to stock markets are completed within two days, indicating that stock markets adjust quickly, but not instantaneously, to all relevant information in the region. The study also finds that Japan and Hong Kong are the most influential markets in terms of their effects on other markets in the region. Moreover, the result of the absence of cointegration may simply rule out the existence of a long- run equilibrium tending relationship, but does not invalidate any short-run relationships which may arise due to profit-seeking opportunities in transactions. Furthermore, examining the 'causal' relationships between a stock market and economic fundamentals shows that the exchange rate and the corporate bond rate are the only two out of several factors tested that are 'causal' of stock returns in many markets in the Asia-Pacific region. In short, the results are consistent with the view that stock returns only respond to monetary variables. Hence, one possible implication is that most of the indicators of macroeconomic fundamentals in the Asia-Pacific region are not the predictors of stock returns and that information captured in a stock market does not reflect changes in its country's macroeconomic fundamentals.