<p>Abstract</p><p>________________________________________________________________</p><p>Författare/Author Richard Tähtinen</p><p>Titel/Title Youth hockey from a coach perspective. A qualitative study about coaches´</p><p>appreciations concerning youth hockey</p><p>The aim with this study is to strengthen the knowledge about coaches´ appreciations</p><p>concerning youth hockey. This study contains interviews with three leaders that operate on</p><p>the strategic level within youth hockey and three coaches working with youth players in the</p><p>ages of 11 and 12. I have divided my main results into 4 categories, based on an earlier study</p><p>from Karin Redelius (2002). These categories include the following themes:</p><p>1) Competition on the good and the bad</p><p>2) The importance of winning</p><p>3) Shake-out versus sports on children’s terms</p><p>4) Instruction, play and learning</p><p>The main conclusions in this study show that leaders on the strategic level appreciate youth</p><p>hockey in a very similar way. Coaches´ appreciations vary on a much higher level both from</p><p>each other and from the appreciations expressed by the leaders. One of the coaches recon that</p><p>winning is very important and gives the coach assurance of a job well done. The leaders note</p><p>that one of the biggest mistakes a coach in youth hockey can make is to concentrate on the</p><p>result and therefore estimate his/hers coaching capabilities depending on the amount of wins.</p><p>Thus will this result fixation lead to unwanted behavior by the coaches´. Some of the coaches´</p><p>believe that shake-out of youth players within ice hockey is the result of the sport interests</p><p>carried by the parents. Some believe that it is the lack of resources that lead to drop-out from</p><p>youth hockey. The coaches in this study believe that the athletic environment within youth ice</p><p>hockey doesn’t differ from other team sports. They do point out that youth hockey players</p><p>spend more time in the locker-room than players in other team sports.</p>

Texte remanié de: Thèse de doctorat--Droit--Sfax (Tunisie)--Faculté de droit, 2006. / Bibliogr. p. 445-465. Index. Résumé en anglais.

Thesis (D. Sc.)--University of London. / "No. 38 in the series of monographs by writers connected with the London school of economics and political science."

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Economics, June 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains x, 146 p. : col. ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Open access. Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-221). Print copy also available.

Rural communities play a significant role in the State of Texas economy. The economic success of these communities depends heavily on maintaining adequate public infrastructure systems. This report examines the infrastructure needs of 11 rural Texas cities to identify gaps in funding resources available through state and federal grant and loan programs for infrastructure improvements. Primary findings conclude that inadequate funding support for rural infrastructure improvements through state and federal grant and loan programs exists primarily for water and wastewater infrastructure improvements and street and sidewalk improvements. In addition, the report outlines limitations specific to rural communities in obtaining various forms of capital financing that include a limited tax base, limited access to borrowing and lack of economies of scale as well as various demographic characteristics that contribute to these limitations. / text

This thesis includes one essay on incomplete information and two essays on the capital market implications of asymmetric information. The acquisition of information and its dissemination to all economic units are central activities in capital markets. Limits to information diffusion may exist when market participants have limited processing ability or when market structure causes information asymmetry to persist. Merton (1987) proposes a simple capital market equilibrium model with incomplete information, in which difference in a stock’s investor recognition affects its cost of capital. Myers and Majluf (1984) lay out the theoretical foundation for the role of asymmetric information in corporate finance and its capital market implications. The first essay tests and offers support to Merton’s (1987) theory. In the U.S. market, using the breadth of ownership among retail investors as a proxy for investor recognition, I show that a long-short portfolio based on the annual change of shareholder base earns a compounded annual abnormal return of 6.42% after controlling for the Fama-French three factors. These results are more pronounced among young, low visibility and high idiosyncratic volatility stocks. Moreover, I present evidence that the investor recognition effect can explain approximately 20% of the puzzling net equity issuance effect documented by Pontiff and Woodgate (2008). The second essay suggests a novel signaling mechanism in the framework of asymmetric information. When a firm’s convertible debt is issued, it is not only determined by the fundamentals of the firm such as past stock performance, but also related to whether this performance is realized during the tenure of current CEO who decides the issues. I define the performance that the current CEO achieves in the firm ever since the CEO comes to the helm as CEO-specific performance. Higher CEOspecific performance leads to (1) a higher probability of convertible issues, and (2) a less negative abnormal stock return in response to the convertible issue announcement, controlling for other firm characteristics. These evidences indicate that CEO-specific performance serves as a credible information signal to influence the adverse selection costs between the firm and outside investors in convertible bond financing. The third essay explores the possibility of asymmetric information in explaining the pronounced share issue anomaly in the cross-sectional variations of stock returns, as documented by Pontiff and Woodgate (2008). A lot of equity share issue and repurchase actions are actively determined by the decision of corporate stakeholders, such as employees at the stock options exercises. As these stakeholders hold a large amount of private information about the firm, it is in their optimal decisions to try to time the exercise of their share purchase activity, but outside investors are likely to fail to interpret the information revealed from these actions. I present strong evidence that a negative relation between share issues and stock returns is affected to a greater extent when the information asymmetry problem is more severe. / published_or_final_version / Business / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

With the implementation of the pilot Emission Trading Schemes (ETSs) in China since 2013, there emerges a new opportunity for investing in Chinese green technology (greentech) projects. Apart from trading the international CERs (Certified Emissions Reductions), investors nowadays can also trade the CCERs (Chinese Certified Emissions Reductions) in the domestic carbon market. However, the pricing of CCERs is different from that of CERs due to the distinct climate policies in China, thus making the investment decisions in Chinese greentech projects a complicated problem. This study is, to our knowledge, the first attempt to evaluate greentech projects under uncertain climate policies in developing countries like China. To identify the investment environment of Chinese greentech projects, a qualitative research on the development of climate policies and greentech market is first conducted. Based on the study of international climate polices and carbon markets, the pricing mechanisms of carbon assets (carbon allowances and carbon offsets) are investigated. Furthermore, China’s climate polices, including the energy policies and emission reduction policies, are analysed in detail. In addition, both the administrative and economic instruments used in China’s climate policies are investigated. Then, business opportunities and challenges in greentech market are investigated. It is shown that there is substantial demand for greentech projects, and the uncertainties embedded a Chinese greentech project in power sector mainly come from the CCER price and electricity price. To integrate the different stochastic price processes, a real-options-based greentech investment (ROGI) model is developed to derive the investment options value and the optimal investment timing. Considering the possible interventions of the government, the CCER price is modelled as mean-reverting process with jump and cap-floor. In addition, an equivalent electricity price is developed and also described by a mean-reverting process. To solve the ROGI model with various uncertainties involved, a least-square Monte Carlo (LSM) approach is developed. The proposed LSM algorithm is built within the dynamic programming framework. It is shown that the optimal investment strategy can be characterized by a continuation region. The proposed ROGI model is verified by a real case of wind power project investment in China. Sensitive analysis is conducted to examine the effects of the model parameters on the investment decisions. Different climate policy scenarios are then tested, including carbon price jump, carbon price cap and floor, and carbon tax. Several interesting findings are concluded from the results analysis in this study. First, it is found that investors are relatively insensitive to the jump in the CCER price, the volatility of the CCER price, or the mean-reverting speed. Second, the CCER price floor set by the government can effectively encourage greentech investments while the price cap is not a major concern of investors. Finally, the long-term growth rate of the CCER price as well as the carbon tax rate can also plays a significant role in investment decisions. / published_or_final_version / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis consists of two essays on the impacts product market competition has on the real investment efficiency of firms. While the first essay looks at this question through the corporate governance angle and finds product market competition complements institutional investors in disciplining firms, the latter one studies the impacts from an information production point of view and concludes competition reduces the incentive of firms to acquire information thereby reduces investment efficiency. Using product market competition as a proxy for external corporate governance, the first essay documents a sizeable difference between the governance impact of institutional investors on firms with strong and weak external corporate governance. Higher institutional ownership is associated with real efficiency of firms, but only when external corporate governance is strong. The real efficiency is reflected in higher investment sensitivity to investment opportunities and higher firm value. Utilizing the passing of business combination laws as a negative shock to external corporate governance, the essay identifies that firms with higher institutional ownership suffer a larger decrease in real efficiency, suggesting external corporate governance such as product market competition is critical for institutional investors in disciplining firms. The second essay attempts to figure out the impact of product market competition from an ex ante point of view. Specifically, how does product market competition change the incentive of firms to acquire information about investment opportunities ex ante? The essay provides both a model and a series of extensive empirical tests. The model features a two-stage Bayesian game in differentiated products market competition. This essay finds that competition causes firms to acquire less information and that investment becomes more inefficient in competitive industries. Empirically investment efficiency is measured by a latent variable technique and related to competition using a Herfindahl-Hirschman index as well as more exogenous measure such as trade costs. The panel regression analysis provides strong support for the theory and shows that investment is more efficient in concentrated industries. / published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy