<p>The paper studies share repurchases done by 50 randomly chosen U.S. publicly traded companies between 1996 and 2007 and checks if they could have been done at more advantageous prices for long-term shareholders in the two years following repurchases. The paper argues that the lower the price at which a repurchase is done the better it is for long-term shareholders.</p><p> </p><p>The results indicate that on average for 37 % of the years in which a company repurchased shares, it could have done it at a price at least 25 % lower in the next two years. When the results are weighted to take into account the dollar amounts spent on repurchases each year, the figure increases to 56 %. The paper looks also at if the repurchases could have been done at a price at least 50 % lower in the next two years. The unweighted results show that on average it would have been possible for 17 % of the years in which a company repurchased shares. When the result is weighted for the dollars spent on repurchases each year the proportion increases to 32 %.</p><p> </p><p>The results show also that the companies increased massively their repurchases just before the stock market crash that started in the late 2007.</p>

The paper studies share repurchases done by 50 randomly chosen U.S. publicly traded companies between 1996 and 2007 and checks if they could have been done at more advantageous prices for long-term shareholders in the two years following repurchases. The paper argues that the lower the price at which a repurchase is done the better it is for long-term shareholders.   The results indicate that on average for 37 % of the years in which a company repurchased shares, it could have done it at a price at least 25 % lower in the next two years. When the results are weighted to take into account the dollar amounts spent on repurchases each year, the figure increases to 56 %. The paper looks also at if the repurchases could have been done at a price at least 50 % lower in the next two years. The unweighted results show that on average it would have been possible for 17 % of the years in which a company repurchased shares. When the result is weighted for the dollars spent on repurchases each year the proportion increases to 32 %.   The results show also that the companies increased massively their repurchases just before the stock market crash that started in the late 2007.

Through ¡§Economic Value Added¡¨ (EVA) approach, this study tries to observe the correlation between formation process of king stocks and their market prices. We hope to provide a useful tool to investors, which helps to realize value of king stocks and conditions of finding king stocks among numerous of listed companies, in order to make investment decisions efficiently and more precisely, and to obtain a good margin of profit. We gather financial information of those listed companies, which they had ever deemed as king stocks between 1992 and 2011. They basically have some features in common, i.e. companies with positive prospects, high market price, and newly listed. In this research, we utilize WACC, MV, COV and FGV to analyze EVA of king stocks, and find out the following empirical results: 1.When WACC of a king stock trends up in the long-run, it has a greater opportunity to improve and trigger COV trending up as well. 2.When COV of a king stock trends up, it brings stable performances of MV continuously. 3.FGV has a positive correlation with market price. When FGV of a king stock trends up, it triggers its market price to go up. In this research, we see that when MV and COV are convergent, we¡¦re able to use FGV to anticipate future trend of the stock. We also expect this study further facilitates king-stock companies themselves to set up workable market price stabilizing plans and select the best timing for stock buybacks. Keywords: King Stock, EVA, WACC, MV, COV, FGV, Stock Buybacks.

Au cours de ma thèse, j'ai mené des recherches macroéconomiques appliquées sur différents sujets, allant des effets de la polarisation des emplois sur la réallocation des travailleurs aux effets de la politique monétaire sur la structure du capital des entreprises et les décisions financières. Cette thèse recueille trois articles sur ces arguments. L'article principal de la thèse est mon job market paper. Ce travail m'a donné l'opportunité d'explorer en détail les effets du changement technologique sur la structure professionnelle des marchés du travail, mais aussi ses effets sur la réallocation des travailleurs entre les emplois et le processus de tri des compétences en emplois. En d'autres termes, l'article répond à ces questions: comment les travailleurs utilisent-ils l'échelle professionnelle lorsque l'innovation technologique change sa structure? Quelles sont leurs possibilités d'emploi, compte tenu de leurs compétences, lorsque la technologie change? Et quelles compétences les employeurs recherchent-ils? Cet argument m'a toujours intrigué, et sa pertinence attire actuellement l'attention des gouvernements et des décideurs dans de nombreuses économies développées. Ma recherche s'écarte de ces faits pour analyser quels sont les effets du changement technologique sur les travailleurs et les entreprises. En particulier, il montre -comme cela a déjà été documenté dans la littérature sur la polarisation des emplois- que l'innovation technologique remodèle la structure professionnelle de l'économie en détruisant certains types d'emplois. Cependant, je montre que l'innovation technologique modifie la demande de compétences dans chaque profession de manière à avoir des effets hétérogènes sur les travailleurs en termes de mobilité de la main-d'œuvre, d'opportunités d'emploi et de qualité de matching. En particulier, ce papier est le premier à montrer que la technologie - en provoquant la polarisation du marché du travail - déclenche de grands mouvements du haut vers le bas de l'échelle des emplois, de nombreux travailleurs finissant dans des professions moins rémunérées et moins qualifiées. Les effets du changement technologique sur les résultats et la dynamique du marché du travail sont également examinés dans le deuxième chapitre de cette thèse. En particulier, ce travail, en collaboration avec Joanne Tan, montre comment le changement technologique peut expliquer l'augmentation de la pénurie de main-d'œuvre (occupational shortage) et comment les différents segments du marché du travail y réagissent Dans le dernier chapitre de la thèse, je m'intéresse à la relation entre la politique monétaire et la décision de rachat d'actions. Ce sujet n'a aucun lien avec le précédent, mais j'ai toujours été intéressé par la façon dont les macro-variables peuvent influencer les décisions des gestionnaires au niveau micro. Dans ce travail, conjointement avec Assia Elgouacem, nous utilisons des données au niveau de l'entreprise et montrons que les sociétés américaines rachètent davantage leurs propres actions en période de politique monétaire accommodante, c'est-à-dire lorsque le coût de la dette est faible. En fait, nous montrons que si la courbe de rendement d'une entreprise s'ajuste dans la direction prévue par la politique monétaire, c'est-à-dire que le coût de la dette diminue, l'entreprise émettra davantage d'obligations pour lever des fonds à moindre coût. Cependant, ils vont utiliser la majeure partie de ces nouvelles liquidités pour financer un programme de rachat plutôt que d'investir dans de nouveaux capitaux et emplois. Cet effet d'éviction des rachats sur les nouveaux investissements et l'emploi suscite des doutes car il atténue la transmission de la politique monétaire. / During my PhD I conducted applied macroeconomic research on several different topics, spanning from the effects of job polarization on workers reallocation to the effects of monetary policy on firms capital structure and financial decisions. This thesis collects three articles on these arguments. The main article of the thesis is my job market paper. This work gave me the opportunity to explore in detail the effects of technological change on the occupational structure of labor markets, but also its effects on the reallocation of workers across jobs and the process of sorting skills to jobs. Or in other words, the paper answers these questions: how do workers use the job ladder when technological innovation changes its structure? What are their job opportunities, given their skills, when technology changes? And what skills do employers look for? This argument always intrigued me, and its relevance is raising the attention of governments and policy makers in many developed economics. My research departs from these facts to analyze what are the heterogeneous effects of technological change on workers and firms. In particular, it shows -as already documented in the literature on job polarization- that technological innovation reshapes the occupational structure of the economy by destroying some type of jobs. However I show that, at the same time, technological innovation changes the demand for skills in each occupation such that it has heterogeneous effects across workers in terms of labor mobility, job opportunities and match quality. In particular, this paper is the first to show that technology - by causing the polarization of the labor market- triggers large movements from the top to the bottom of the job ladder, with many workers ending up in lower paying and lower qualifying occupations just after the disruptive effects of technological change were consumed. The effects of technological change on labor market outcomes and dynamics is explored also in the second chapter of this thesis. In particular, this work, joint with Joanne Tan, shows how technological change can explain the raise of occupational shortage. More interestingly, it shows how different segments of the labor market react to occupational shortage. In the last chapter of the thesis, I turn my attention to the relationship of monetary policy and corporate decision of share repurchase. This topic is fully unrelated from the previous one, but I have always been interested on how macro-variables can influence managers decisions at micro level. In this work, joint with Assia Egouace, we use firm-level data and show that American corporations buyback more their own shares in period of accommodating monetary policy, i.e. when the cost of debt is low. In fact we show that if the yield curve of a firm adjusts in the direction predicted by monetary policy, i.e. the corporate cost of debt diminishes, the firm is going to issue more bonds to raise money at lower costs. However, they are going to use most of these new liquidity to finance a repurchase program rather than investing into new capital and employment. This crowding out effect of buybacks on new investment and employment casts doubts since it attenuates the transmission of monetary policy.

This thesis comprises five empirical essays using Swedish data. Three of the essays examine open market share repurchases, one essay investigates changes in investors’ shareholdings surrounding equity rights offerings (ROs), and the last essay investigates owner-managers’ equity portfolio choices. The first essay examines stock performance around initiation announcements of open market share repurchase programs, the price impact of repurchase trading and the long-run stock performance following the initiation announcements. The study uses a unique data set of initiation announcements and actual share repurchases conducted by firms listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange (SSE). The results show that initiation announcements of open market repurchase programs exhibit a 2 day abnormal return (AR) of 2% on average. The price impact on the actual repurchase days is positively correlated with the daily repurchase volume, and is both statistically and economically significant during the first 3 repurchase days in a repurchase program. The long-run abnormal stock performance is positively associated with the fraction of shares bought in the program and is on average 7% for the first year following the initiation announcement. The results indicate that repurchase trading provides price support and that the market participants detect and perceive the initiation announcement and the first repurchase days in a repurchase program as a signal of undervaluation. The second essay examines differences in the market performance of Swedish firms that initiate repurchase programs infrequently (1-2 programs), occasionally (3-4 programs) and frequently (5 or more programs) over the period 2000-2009. It is found that infrequent repurchase programs are greeted with a stronger positive reaction than occasional and frequent programs. However, over the long-term, infrequent repurchase programs show no AR while occasional and frequent repurchase programs show significant positive ARs. A positive relationship between AR and repurchase size is documented for all types of repurchase programs. The third essay examines the market liquidity impact of open market share repurchases in an electronic order-driven market. The study uses a detailed data set of daily repurchase transactions on the SSE together with intraday data on bid-ask spreads and order depths which enables an investigation of the liquidity effects on the actual repurchase days. It is found that repurchase trades inside the order-driven trading system contribute to market liquidity through narrower bid-ask spreads and deeper market depths. After controlling for trading volume, price and volatility, a significant decrease of the bid-ask spread on repurchase days relative to surrounding non-repurchase days is still found. However, repurchases executed as block trades outside the order-driven trading system have a detrimental effect on the bid-ask spread, consistent with a negative response to the presence of informed managerial trading. The fourth essay examines changes in equity ownership surrounding ROs by firms listed on the SSE. The results show that domestic individual investors on average reduce their shareholdings following rights issues, whereas domestic institutional investors and foreign investors increase their holdings. However, when ownership changes are adjusted with changes in ownership in matched non-issuing firms, it is documented that domestic institutions significantly increase their shareholdings in RO firms, whereas foreign investors decrease their holdings in these firms. A positive (negative) association between the 6 month benchmark adjusted return following the offering and the change in shareholdings by foreign investors (domestic institutional investors) is also documented. Finally, the fifth and last essay investigates how Swedish owner-managers (CEO or Chairman) invest in the Swedish stock market conditional on a major investment in their own firm. No evidence is found that owner-managers seek diversification benefits when they invest in other Swedish stocks. In general, they choose other stocks that show higher correlation among themselves than the average Swedish stocks. It is also found that owner-managers within high-tech industries invest significantly more of their total Swedish stock investments in IT stocks than owner-managers within other industries. / <p>QC 20130515</p>

Cette thèse sur travaux est la synthèse de publications réalisées entre 2005 et 2012 ainsi que de papiers de travail. Elle est organisée autour de trois axes : des questions relatives au Club de Paris, des articles au sujet de la loi de Gibrat et des travaux autour de l’Histoire de la Banque de France. Le premier axe comprend deux papiers publiés dans le bulletin de la Banque de France : l’un sur l’évaluation de l’initiative PPTE (Pays pauvres très endettés, mécanismes et éléments d’évaluation, Bulletin N°140, août 2005) et le second sur la modélisation des buybacks de créance au sein du club de Paris. Ce dernier papier a été sous deux formes (grand public : Modélisation et analyse des mécanismes du Club de Paris de rachat de créances par prépaiement, avec Laurent Daniel, Bulletin N° 152, août 2006, et recherche : Pricing the implicit contracts in the Paris Club debt buybacks avec Laurent Daniel, working paper, December 2007). Le second axe concerne la validation de la loi de Gibrat, avec la publication de trois articles (French butchers don't do Quantum Physics in Economics Letters, Vol. 103, May 2009, Pp. 101-106 ; The Paretian Ratio Distribution - An application to the volatility of GDP in Economics Letters, Vol. 111, May 2011, pp. 180-183 ; The Laplace Illusion in Physica A, Vol. 391, August 2012, pp. 3963–3970). Le dernier axe regroupe des travaux sur l’Histoire de la Banque de France. Certains sont publiés comme La Caisse de Réserve des Employés de la Banque de France 1800-1950, (Économies et Sociétés, série « Histoire Économique Quantitative », août 2007, n°37, pp. 1365-1383 ou en cours. / This dissertation is made of several papers published between 2005 and 2012 and somme working papers. The first part deals with the Paris Club. Two papers published in the Bulletin of the Banque de France deal with the very indebted countries and debt buybacks ( Pricing the implicit contracts in the Paris Club debt buybacks). The second axis is oriented on the Gibrat's law (French butchers don't do Quantum Physics in Economics Letters, Vol. 103, May 2009, Pp. 101-106 ; The Paretian Ratio Distribution - An application to the volatility of GDP in Economics Letters, Vol. 111, May 2011, pp. 180-183 ; The Laplace Illusion in Physica A, Vol. 391, August 2012, pp. 3963–3970). The third axis deals with the history of the Banque de France.

Aktieåterköp är en snabbt växande företeelse och är på grund av tidigare lagar relativt nytt i Sverige jämfört med andra utvecklade länder. Aktieåterköp kan i vissa fall användas som ett substitut för utdelning, men kan även genomföras för att signalera marknaden och förhindra företagsuppköp. För att få en större förståelse för aktieåterköp har ett fåtal studier undersökt dess samband till ägarförhållanden på olika sätt. Dessa studier visar olika resultat i olika länder, vilket kan tyda på att landspecifika faktorer spelar roll vid undersökning av ägarförhållanden. Den aktuella studien undersöker hur ägarkoncentrationen och det interna ägandet ser ut i bolag som återköper aktier, samt om det finns någon skillnad i ägarkoncentration och internt ägande mellan aktieåterköpande och icke-återköpande bolag som är noterade på Stockholmsbörsen. Studien har en kvantitativ ansats och använder en tvärsnittsdesign för att besvara hypoteserna och jämföra de två grupperna. Hypoteserna är framställda utifrån den teoretiska referensramen som främst grundar sig i agentteori och asymmetrisk information. Resultatet visar hur ägarkoncentrationen och det interna ägandet ser ut för bolag som återköper egna aktier på Stockholmsbörsen 2019. Små skillnader kunde ur studiens resultat observeras mellan de två grupperna av observationer. Skillnaderna uppvisade ingen statistisk signifikans. / Share repurchases are a rapidly growing phenomenon and is relatively new in Sweden compared to other developed countries due to previous swedish laws. Share repurchases are often seen as a substitute for dividends, but can also be implemented to signal the market and prevent corporate acquisitions. Few studies have investigated share repurchases relation to ownership in various ways in order to understand the phenomenon further. These studies show different results in different countries, which may indicate that country-specific factors play a role when investigating ownership. The current study examines the ownership concentration and the internal ownership in companies that repurchase shares, and also if there is a difference in ownership concentration and internal ownership between companies that repurchase stocks and those who don’t. These companies are listed on Nasdaq Stockholm. The study has a quantitative approach and uses a cross-sectional design to answer the hypotheses and compare the two selected groups. The hypotheses are produced on the basis of the theoretical frame of reference, which is mainly based on agency theory and asymmetrical information. The results of the study indicate how the concentration and internal ownership looks for companies that repurchase their own shares on Nasdaq Stockholm. Small differences could be observed from the study’s results between the two groups of observations. The differences showed no statistical significance.

This study explores the possibility that cheep credit, provided to firms when profit opportunities on real investments are low, and when opportunities of financial investments are present, will loose some of it’s stimulus effect due to a crowding out effect of financial investments on real investments. Analyzing the changes in debt, and it’s channels of use during the recession of the covid19 pandemic, between firms with a history of stock buybacks, and firms without such a history, the study finds a significantly higher increase in debt for firms with a history of doing stock buybacks. The study concludes that this effect is due to firms finding financial uses of more cheap credit, which does crowd out real investments.

This thesis investigates the current interrelationship between the provisions contained in the Swedish Company Act (2005:551) and activities related to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) pursued by companies listed at Nasdaq Stockholm. The focal point of this thesis could be argued to be of particular relevance in this day and age, as companies listed at Nasdaq Stockholm continue to perform at the top of the league in global sustainability performance measurements, and Swedish and European legislators have intensified their efforts to encourage businesses to operate in a way that does not incur unacceptable social costs to society. Thus, most companies, particularly those with a vested interest in the private consumer market, seem to recognise the importance of fostering long-term relationships with a wide sphere of stakeholders. The purpose of the thesis has been to contribute to the steadily increasing body of legal research that discusses to what extent Swedish companies, without breaching corporate law, could involve themselves in CSR investments. Since I, initially, conclude that Swedish publicly listed companies seem to increasingly invest in activities related to CSR, the thesis also discusses whether the relevant provisions of the SCA need to change to better adapt to companies’ involvement in CSR activities. In brief, I argue, that current business research on CSR coupled with the aforementioned relevant provisions of the SCA allow boards and managing directors to pursue practically any CSR investments, and that shareholders are mostly restricted to rely on relatively blunt ex post actions against a board and/or managing director that has pursued an ill-considered CSR investment, including the obvious choices of voting to replace the board or selling their shares. And since current business research has not consistently proven the positive impact of CSR policies on the financial performance of businesses there are reasons to suspect that the law practically, due to the shielding force of the business judgment rationale and the legislator’s wish to protect most transactions, cannot be effectively applied to stop CSR investments, even if these are nothing but costs for the business. On the other hand, the findings of the thesis also suggest that the occurrence of such unwise CSR investments is not necessarily a proliferating problem, since many companies listed at Nasdaq Stockholm nowadays have powerful and short-sighted institutional owners. The situation might therefore very well be the opposite and that executives struggle to manage for the long-term, as the logic of the market tell them to do otherwise. / Den här examensuppsatsen utforskar förhållandet mellan några av aktiebolagslagens regler och det engagemang som bolag noterade på Nasdaq Stockholm uppvisar i frågor rörande Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Ämnet kan sägas vara särskilt relevant då såväl det samtida näringslivet som lagstiftaren tycks präglas av en ökad medvetenhet kring CSR-frågor. Den ökade medvetenheten i näringslivet förefaller alltmer inverka på affärsbeslut, ett faktum som inte minst avspeglas i de svenska bolagens topplaceringar i globala index som mäter bolags arbete med hållbarhetsfrågor. Samtidigt speglas lagstiftarens ökade medvetenhet av allt fler svenska som europeiska regulatoriska initiativ på området och vars yttersta syfte är att uppmuntra och stimulera hållbara företag som inte pådyvlar samhället oacceptabla sociala kostnader. Det är således inte särskilt anmärkningsvärt att bolagen, i synnerhet de med intressen anknutna till konsumentmarknaderna, tycks erkänna vikten av att bygga och underhålla långsiktiga relationer med en vidare krets av intressenter än deras aktieägare. Det är min förhoppning att den här uppsatsen kommer att bidra till den ständigt växande del av den aktiebolagsrättsliga diskursen som diskuterar till vilken grad bolag, utan att handla i strid med ABL:s bestämmelser, kan företa åtgärder kopplade till CSR. Eftersom jag inledningsvis anför att bolagen på Nasdaq Stockholm tycks ägna sig allt mer åt CSR diskuterar också uppsatsen om några av ABL:s bestämmelser bör förändras för att bättre hantera dessa företags allt större engagemang i CSR-frågor. Sammanfattningsvis argumenterar jag för att nuvarande företagsekonomisk forskning kring CSR tillsammans med de aktuella bestämmelsernas juridiska innebörd innebär att såväl bolagsstyrelser som verkställande direktörer kan företa i princip vilken investering relaterad till CSR som helst. Aktieägare är i praktiken hänvisade till att söka åstadkomma långsiktigt lönsamma satsningar på hållbarhet genom sanktioner ex post, exempelvis genom att sälja sina aktier eller rösta bort styrelsen. Detta innebär å ena sidan i praktiken, med tanke på att nuvarande företagsekonomisk forskning kring CSR:s inverkan på bolags vinster är tvetydig, att de relevanta bestämmelserna i ABL såsom de nu är utformade utgör en trygg hamn även för många av de transaktioner relaterade till CSR som är direkt värdeförstörande. Å andra sidan argumenterar jag i uppsatsen för att problemet med överinvesteringar i CSR inte nödvändigtvis behöver vara särskilt utbrett då bolagen och deras bolagsstyrning allt mer kommit att präglas av kortsiktiga investeringsperspektiv.