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Yes / The study examines the impact of liquidity risk on freight derivatives returns. The Amihud liquidity ratio and bid–ask spreads are utilized to assess the existence of liquidity risk in the freight derivatives market. Other macroeconomic variables are used to control for market risk. Results indicate that liquidity risk is priced and both liquidity measures have a significant role in determining freight derivatives returns. Consistent with expectations, both liquidity measures are found to have positive and significant effects on the returns of freight derivatives. The results have important implications for modeling freight derivatives, and consequently, for trading and risk management purposes.

Yes / This paper investigates whether bond, issuer, industry and macro-specific variables account for the observed variation of credit spreads’ changes of global shipping bond issues before and after the onset of the subprime financial crisis. Results show that conclusions as to the significant variables of spreads depend significantly on whether two-way clusteradjusted standard errors are utilized, thus rendering results in the extant literature ambigious. The main determinants of global cargo-carrying companies’ shipping bond spreads are found in this paper to be: the liquidity of the bond issue, the stock market’s volatility, the bond market’s cyclicality, freight earnings and the credit rating of the bond issue.

Submitted by Miguel de Campos Pinto Coelho (miguelpintocoelho@gmail.com) on 2016-03-01T02:08:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015-16_S2-932304-Miguel_Pinto_Coelho.pdf: 1544988 bytes, checksum: 0410eb0c13fc1b0030abc341426188b1 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Luiza Holme (ana.holme@fgv.br) on 2016-03-01T12:28:51Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2015-16_S2-932304-Miguel_Pinto_Coelho.pdf: 1544988 bytes, checksum: 0410eb0c13fc1b0030abc341426188b1 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-01T13:13:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015-16_S2-932304-Miguel_Pinto_Coelho.pdf: 1544988 bytes, checksum: 0410eb0c13fc1b0030abc341426188b1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-01-18 / This project investigates if there was any influence of credit rating agencies and long-term government bond yields on each other before, during and after Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. This is addressed by estimating the relationship and causality between sovereign debt ratings or bond yields and macroeconomic and structural variables following a different procedure to explain ratings and bond yields. It is found evidence that, in distressed periods, ratings and yields do affect one another. This suggests that a rating downgrade might create a self-fulfilling prophecy, leading relatively stable countries to default. / Neste projeto, investigamos se as agências de rating e as taxas de juro de longo prazo da dívida soberana tiveram uma influência recíproca antes, durante e após a crise da dívida soberana Europeia. Esta análise é realizada, estimando a relação existente entre os ratings da dívida soberana ou taxas de juro e factores macroeconomicos e estruturais, através de uma diferente aplicação de metodologias utilizadas para este efeito. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que, no período da crise soberana, os ratings e as taxas de juros tiveram um mútuo impacto, sugerindo que as descidas dos ratings podem ter conduzido a profecias auto-realizáveis, levando países relativamente estáveis a um eventual incumprimento

Our thesis aims to help the market participants to understand the source of the risk in green bonds market. We estimate the liquidity risk effects in green bonds' yield spreads as well as controlling for credit risk, bond-specific chracteristics and macroeconomic variables. Both of our liquidity measures suggest that green bonds are more liquid than investment grade US corporate bonds. We find that liquidity effect in green bonds' yield spreads is pronounced, and the result is robust after controlling for potential endogeneity bias. The power of green bonds' liquidity premium is about 10 to 100 times as strong as speculative grade German bonds and investment grade US corporate bonds respectively. In addition to the lack of clear risk profile in green bonds market, our three-stage least squares regression shows that credit risk influences the liquidity risk of green bonds, this indicates that credit risk is a potential source of private information that affects the high liquidity of green bonds. This result has an implication for policy as the credit risk and liquidity risk could be the pitfalls in green bonds market.

The spreading sovereign debt crisis in the Euro zone has renewed the debate about impact of credit rating agencies on financial markets. This thesis aims to explore the role played by the leading credit rating agencies by analysing the interaction between changes in sovereign ratings announced and the yield spreads of sovereign bonds, especially the short term impact and the potential contagion effect of rating changes on the highly integrated Euro zone financial market. The conducted event study and panel regression indicate that there is a significant impact of rating downgrades and negative rating outlooks on sovereign bond markets. Moreover, we have found significant contagion effect spreading from downgraded countries to non-event Euro zone members, namely not only to sovereign bond markets, but also to stock markets. JEL Classification: C23, E44, G12, G14 Keywords: credit ratings; sovereign yield spreads; rating agencies; contagion Author's email: veronika.vyskocilova@email.cz Supervisor's email: roman.horvath@gmail.com

This thesis deals with the sorting and use of sweeteners in the production of fruit spreads. The theoretical part focuses on the sorting of sweetening agents and their classification. Furthermore, it presents procedures of production of fruit spreads and their assortment. The main goal is to compare sensory attributes of jams that I produced according to an assigned recipe, which is described in the practical part of this thesis. These jams were made from regional fruits (strawberries, apricots, sour-cherries) and sweetened with both natural (sucrose, sorbitol, Steviol glycosides) and artificial (sucralose) sweetening agents. The control group of this research were the students and employees of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice in the age of 24-60 years. The evaluators filled in a sequence test protocol and a questionnaire for consumers. The results of the sensory analysis were processed into tables and graphs with the aid of statistical methods.

A top-down analysis approach used for over 17 thousand of euro-denominated corporate bond issuances executed in the European primary bond market between 1999 and 2013. The main findings reveal not only the most active corporate issuers in Europe, but they also show the decomposition of issuance by coupon type, rated versus unrated issuance, debut and perpetual issuances, high grade as well as high yield new bond issues split by sector, rating and maturity. I used the opensource statistical package Gretl and applied the ordinary least square technique in order to quantify the association between euro-denominated corporate issuance and credit spreads.

This diploma thesis deals with comparison of the properties of chokeberry spreads of different origins, composition and different production technologies. The theoretical part contains a brief description of the chokeberry – Aronia melanocarpa, an overview of the most important substances contained in the chokeberry and examples of the use of aronia, not only in the food industry. Furthermore, the legislative requirements for the production of spreads and the production technology itself are described. In this thesis is also described a new patented technology of spread production using HTD technology. Another part of the theoretical part is a literature review of the determination of anthocyanins in chokeberry by HPLC method. The experimental part describes the laboratory procedures used for determination of dry matter, carbohydrates by HPLC with ELSD detector, anthocyanin dyes, total phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity. Another part of the work was a questionnaire survey and sensory analysis of selected chokeberry spreads. The panel members prefered the Lowicz chokeberry spread, for which was determined 29,39% dry matter, 15,15 mg.g-1 anthocyanins, 9,20 mg.g-1 total phenolic compounds, 158,42 mg.g-1 fructose and 151,26 mg.g-1 glucose and the antioxidant activity was determined to be 5,94 mg.g-1.