No description available.

No description available.

When investment projects are described by subjective probability distributions, the measure of investment worth becomes a difficult task. One of the basic assumptions underlying investment analysis under risk is that decision makers would base their decisions on only the first two statistical moments of the probability distribution of returns. However, the mean and variance can adequately describe only certain symmetric distributions such as the normal and the uniform distributions. As a result, if probability distributions of investment returns are actually asymmetric, the classic first two moments analysis ignores information (skewness) that is needed to make a better investment decision. Even though the importance of the third moment in project selection has been recognized, nowhere in the literature is there a successful application of the concept to a regular periodic decision process where the decision maker lacks full knowledge of his future as well as present investment opportunities. Therefore, it is the purpose of this research to investigate the effectiveness of utilizing the higher statistical moments in capital rationing situation.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis presents empirical research into the project risk pricing decision undertaken by Australian project leaders for domestic project finance. It addresses questions about the relative importance of various project finance risks on the project risk pricing decision; the impact of risk interactions; and the degree of self-insight possessed by Australian project leaders when making this decision. Five project financing risk most frequently cited in the literature, namely: operating, environmental, market, political/regulation, and sponsors, were selected. Sixteen hypothetical risk pricing cases were structured, which were completed by twenty-five project leaders working in Sydney. The collected data was analysed, and the results show that the five project financing risks had strong impact on the project risk pricing decision. Among them, market risk is the most influential factor, followed by operating, sponsors, and political/regulation risks, while environmental risk was the factor with least effect. Very little support, however, was provided for the hypothesis that risk interactions impact the project risk pricing decision. Among the ten two-level risk interactions tested, only the interaction between sponsors and political/regulation was found to be significant. In relations to the degree of self-insight, various comparisons between subjective and objective weights demonstrated that the project leaders, in general, were quite insightful about their project finance risk pricing decisions / Master of Commerce (Hons)

Diss.-- European Business School, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (doctoral)--Göteborgs universitet, 2003. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement inserted. Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation addresses concerns regarding corporate activities in relation to agency costs and studies the effect of the market for corporate control. In the first essay, we use the mid-1990s Delaware takeover regime shift as an exogenous shock to examine how the removal of takeover threats affects managerial decisions on corporate financing and investment and how it affects firm value. Based on a differences-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) approach, we find that managers reduce debt financing and increase capital investment when they are protected against hostile takeovers, which is consistent with managerial agency models of capital structure and the free cash flow hypothesis proposed by Jensen (1986). We demonstrate that engaging in these entrenched behaviors consequently destroys firm value. Moreover, our evidence indicates that the effect of the takeover regime shift is more pronounced in firms with fewer institutional holdings or lower managerial ownership, supporting the argument of Jensen (1993) that effective internal control systems can alleviate the negative outcomes of a weakened market for corporate control. The substitution effect of internal controls is more substantial than that of the external product market competition. Finally, we determine that empire building, rather than quiet life, is the main consequence of a weakened market for corporate control. In the second essay, we directly examine the causal relationship between managerial entrenchment and diversification. We demonstrate that more entrenched managers adopt higher levels of diversification than do less entrenched managers. We verify the result by using two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression and treating entrenchment as endogenous. In addition, based on an exogenous change in takeover legislation in Delaware in the mid-1990s, we adopt the differences-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) approach and demonstrate that managers increase diversification activities when they are protected against hostile takeovers. Given that diversification destroys value, these results are consistent with the agency costs explanation of diversification. We then explore the motivations that drive managers to diversify. We document that entrenched managers diversify to gain private benefits and to reduce firm risk. Finally, we demonstrate that CEO equity-based incentives increase when takeover-protected firms diversify, suggesting that firms proactively respond to counterbalance the increased costs associated with discretional diversification, which is consistent with theories of optimal contract. / published_or_final_version / Economics and Finance / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy