abstract: This dissertation is a collection of three essays relating household financial obligations to asset prices. Financial obligations include both debt payments and other financial commitments. In the first essay, I investigate how household financial obligations affect the equity premium. I modify the standard Mehra-Prescott (1985) consumption-based asset pricing model to resolve the equity risk premium puzzle. I focus on two channels: the preference channel and the borrowing constraints channel. Under reasonable parameterizations, my model generates equity risk premiums similar in magnitudes to those observed in U.S. data. Furthermore, I show that relaxing the borrowing constraint shrinks the equity risk premium. In the Second essay, I test the predictability of excess market returns using the household financial obligations ratio. I show that deviations in the household financial obligations ratio from its long-run mean is a better forecaster of future market returns than alternative prediction variables. The results remain significant using either quarterly or annual data and are robust to out-of-sample tests. In the third essay, I investigate whether the risk associated with household financial obligations is an economy-wide risk with the potential to explain fluctuations in the cross-section of stock returns. The multifactor model I propose, is a modification of the capital asset pricing model that includes the financial obligations ratio as a ``conditioning down" variable. The key finding is that there is an aggregate hedging demand for securities that pay off in periods characterized by higher levels of financial obligations ratios. The consistent pricing of financial obligations risk with a negative risk premium suggests that the financial obligations ratio acts as a state variable. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Economics 2017

Investors and fund managers have, since the start of financial markets, always been on the lookout for new ways of beating the market. However, researchers of the Efficient Market Hypothesis have shown that markets are usually highly efficient, implying that there are few possibilities of earning returns that are higher than the market returns, on a risk adjusted basis. Prevailing theories, such as the Capital Asset Pricing Model, has shown that increased return must stem from taking on higher risk. Though, this model’s explanatory power has been challenged by numerous researchers who propose different factors, other than market risk, which could hold explanatory power when it comes to returns in the stock market. This area of research is called factor investing, and has shown that factors such as momentum, size, and value, all can lead to outperforming the market.This study examines how a model based on two common factors, quality and value, would have performed on the Swedish stock market. The study is based on five portfolios chosen by the quality and value factors, each one held for 5 years, examined over a 25-year time span and uses the capital asset pricing model as a tool to measure whether or not the selected factors outperform the market. The study has taken a quantitative approach to examining the research question, using a positivistic and objectivistic view.The results of the study show evidence that the quality and value factors can lead to significant outperformance relative to the market index. Both total returns and risk adjusted returns were higher than the market index for some of the portfolios created using the quality and value factors. Furthermore, statistical evidence was found of that CAPM not fully explains all returns, and thus, that the returns are in part explained by the quality and value factors. The findings led to the conclusion that the quality and value factors does, in fact, hold explanatory power beyond that of CAPM. Purchasing quality companies at a reasonable price is shown to be a sound investment strategy, and that a portfolio created using the quality and value factors has good chances of outperforming the market index.

This paper examines the capital - asset pricing model (CAPM) which has been extended with a factor for geo-political risk. I use monthly stock return data for all stocks listed on a major US exchange from January 1990 to December 2016 and utilize a Fama-Macbeth Regression with Newey-West standard errors to test the geo-political augmented Sharpe-Lintner CAPM. The paper first determines if increased sensitivity to geopolitical risk lead s to lower average returns and second assesses if geo-political risk as an explanatory variable is a significant enough to expose a failure of the CAPM to capture expected returns fully through beta. The results of our regressions do not confirm the hypothesis that firms with high sensitivities to geo-political risk have expressly different returns in the long run. Furthermore, our Fama-Macbeth regression does not find expressly significant average slopes for geo-political risk as a variable.

This thesis deals with the issue of investment decision. The goal of thesis is to evaluate for the company owners optimal investment variant of predetermined investment opportunities. Thesis is divided into theoretical-methodological part, which summarizes all the methods and procedures and practical part. The practical part consists mainly of net present value calculations, which chosen input data will be afterwards analyzed by sensitivity test. Application of these apparatuses will reveal the best investment opportunity, respectively their combination

Companiesissuing insurance cover, in return for insurance premiums, face the payments ofclaims occurring according to a loss distribution. Hence, capital must be heldby the companies so that they can guarantee the fulfilment of the claims ofeach line of insurance. The increased incidence of insurance insolvencymotivates the birth of new legislations as the European Solvency II Directive.Companies have to determine the required amount of capital and the optimalcapital allocation across the different lines of insurance in order to keep therisk of insolvency at an adequate level. The capital allocation problem may betreated in different ways, starting from the insurance company balance sheet.Here, the running process and efficiency of four methods are evaluated andcompared so as to point out the characteristics of each of the methods. TheValue-at-Risk technique is straightforward and can be easily generated for anyloss distribution. The insolvency put option principle is easily implementableand is sensitive to the degree of default. The capital asset pricing model isone of the oldest reliable methods and still provides very helpful intermediateresults. The Myers and Read marginal capital allocation approach encouragesdiversification and introduces the concept of default value. Applications ofthe four methods to some fictive and real insurance companies are provided. Thethesis further analyses the sensitivity of those methods to changes in the economiccontext and comments how insurance companies can anticipate those changes.

If more people are starting to invest, then the focus on the effective markethypothesis will increase. The hypothesis's basic idea is that stock pricesalready reflect all available information and outperforming the marketthrough investment strategies is not possible. This study presents how twoinvestment strategies, CAN SLIM and Peter Lynch, has performed on andagainst the S&P 500 under a 10 year period. The result of the study showsthat the efficient market hypothesis does not hold and that an excess returncompared to the market is possible. Between the investment strategies therewas a comparison and analysis regarding the Sharpe ratio and the CapitalAsset Pricing Model. Conclusively, the study shows that CAN SLIM is thestrategy that has performed the best under the period that the study is basedon.

We derive and test a series of profitability factors for cross-section of expected returns on Japanese and Chinese equity markets. We find gross profitability predicts returns and significant both on Japanese and Chinese equity markets. We test these factors using Fama-MacBeth regression and find gross profitability and value portfolios perform better in Japan, size and gross profitability portfolios perform better in China. Then we create new three-factor model based on the result of 5*5 portfolios, which capture value and gross profitability premium in Japan, and, size and gross profitability premium in China. And the new models' GRS test performs better than Fama-French-three-factor model at the 5% significance level. / 博士(文化情報学) / Doctor of Culture and Information Science / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University

No description available.

This thesis investigates the complex dynamics of foreign exchange (FX) risk affecting Swedish multinational corporations and their financial performance, with a focus on the impact of company size and periods of economic crisis. Amidst global economic interdependencies, these entities encounter substantial FX risks, primarily due to the volatility of the Swedish Krona (SEK) against major currencies. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset spanning from 2004 to 2023, this study employs an empirical approach grounded in the International Capital Asset Pricing Model (ICAPM) and Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) to analyze the correlation between currency fluctuations and stock valuations. The analysis reveals that both company size and economic crises significantly modulate the effects of FX risks, with larger companies often better positioned to manage these risks through sophisticated hedging strategies. Smaller firms, conversely, show greater sensitivity to economic disruptions, particularly during crises which heighten the volatility of FX impacts. The findings indicate that FX risks significantly influence the financial outcomes of these firms, with both direct impacts on stock returns and indirect effects through operational strategies. The thesis underscores the importance of robust risk management strategies and the potential for policy adjustments to mitigate adverse effects from currency volatility. The insights derived from this research aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the financial economics of foreign exchange, providing implications for investors and multinational corporations operating in global markets.

Socially responsible investing has presented itself as a growing, multifaceted, advanced and sophisticated investment philosophy. Socially responsible investment (SRI) involves incorporating social, ethical and responsible investment objectives with financial investment objectives during the investment decision-making process. Social, ethical and responsible investment objectives are set in line with environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) criteria which are established within the SRI strategy followed. SRI strategies include screening (negative, positive and best-of-sector), shareholder activism and cause-based investing. Although international SRI markets such as that of the United States of America and the United Kingdom are sophisticated and established markets, the South African SRI market is still relatively new and is yet to reach its full potential. Thus, as a growing market, little research regarding the long term risk-adjusted performance of SRI funds in South Africa has been conducted. The long term risk-adjusted performance of the sample of SRI funds was measured through the use of five risk-adjusted performance measures, namely the Treynor ratio, Sharpe ratio, Jensen’s alpha, Sortino ratio and Omega ratio, and through the use of three performance measurement models which included the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), Fama-French three-factor model and Carhart four-factor model. The risk-adjusted performance of the sample of SRI funds was measured with the intent to establish if these funds out- or underperformed against three benchmark categories, namely the Financial Times Stock Exchange/Johannesburg Stock Exchange (FTSE/JSE) SRI Index, a matched sample of conventional investment (non-SRI) funds and the FTSE/JSE All Share Index. The probable effect of the 2007/08 global financial crisis was also measured to analyse whether such a hazardous market event affected the performance of the SRI funds. According to the results and findings, the risk-adjusted performance of the SRI funds has improved over the research period. However, the SRI funds neither outperformed nor underperformed against the three benchmark categories over the research period. The performance measurement models’ analysis indicated that the SRI funds were less sensitive to market fluctuations, more exposed to small capitalisation portfolios, more growth-oriented, and exhibited significant momentum after the period of the 2007/08 global financial crisis. Furthermore, the analysis indicated that the SRI funds significantly underperformed against the non-SRI funds during the Performance of socially responsible investment funds in South Africa research period. Mixed results were obtained with regards to the probable effect of the 2007/08 global financial crisis on the performance of the SRI funds.