This dissertation contains two essays in empirical finance. The first essay studies the mutual fund industry, and the second essay looks into the stock market. Both studies provide insights in the underlying mechanism of some asset return patterns identified from the data currently available. The first essay investigates the sources of a recently identified performance pattern in mutual funds. Specifically, actively managed mutual funds, in general, underperform a passive benchmark; however, some recent studies find they, in fact, outperform the benchmark in bad economic states. I examine whether a state dependent risk shifting behavior of mutual fund managers contributes to this performance difference across states, and find supportive evidence. As shown in prior studies, the risk shifting behavior is motivated by a non-linear flow-performance relationship. Using a piece-wise linear regression, I demonstrate that the non-linearity exists mainly in good states; whereas in bad states, the flow-performance relationship is close to linear. Thus, non-zero risk shifting incentives are only expected in good states. I empirically measure these incentives in good states, and show that managers do react to the ``gambling'' (i.e., positive) incentives. In addition, higher ``gambling'' incentives are found to be associated with lower fund performance. The second essay, based on joint work with Hai Lu and Kevin Wang, examines how stock price shocks in the absence of public announcement of firm specific news affect future stock returns. We find that both large short term price drops and hikes are followed by negative abnormal returns over the subsequent twelve months. The pattern of asymmetric drifts, the return continuation for negative shocks versus the return reversal for positive shocks, is puzzling. We explore whether investor disagreement can explain the puzzle and find that the evidence is consistent with predictions of disagreement theory. Moreover, price shocks with public news disclosures are followed by weaker drifts, suggesting that reduction of information asymmetry from public disclosures mitigates disagreement-induced overpricing.

This dissertation contains two essays in empirical finance. The first essay studies the mutual fund industry, and the second essay looks into the stock market. Both studies provide insights in the underlying mechanism of some asset return patterns identified from the data currently available. The first essay investigates the sources of a recently identified performance pattern in mutual funds. Specifically, actively managed mutual funds, in general, underperform a passive benchmark; however, some recent studies find they, in fact, outperform the benchmark in bad economic states. I examine whether a state dependent risk shifting behavior of mutual fund managers contributes to this performance difference across states, and find supportive evidence. As shown in prior studies, the risk shifting behavior is motivated by a non-linear flow-performance relationship. Using a piece-wise linear regression, I demonstrate that the non-linearity exists mainly in good states; whereas in bad states, the flow-performance relationship is close to linear. Thus, non-zero risk shifting incentives are only expected in good states. I empirically measure these incentives in good states, and show that managers do react to the ``gambling'' (i.e., positive) incentives. In addition, higher ``gambling'' incentives are found to be associated with lower fund performance. The second essay, based on joint work with Hai Lu and Kevin Wang, examines how stock price shocks in the absence of public announcement of firm specific news affect future stock returns. We find that both large short term price drops and hikes are followed by negative abnormal returns over the subsequent twelve months. The pattern of asymmetric drifts, the return continuation for negative shocks versus the return reversal for positive shocks, is puzzling. We explore whether investor disagreement can explain the puzzle and find that the evidence is consistent with predictions of disagreement theory. Moreover, price shocks with public news disclosures are followed by weaker drifts, suggesting that reduction of information asymmetry from public disclosures mitigates disagreement-induced overpricing.

Conciliationists hold that hold that epistemic peer disagreement about whether a proposition is true constitutes a (partial) defeater for that proposition. Non-conciliationists, on the other hand, deny that peer disagreement constitutes a (partial) defeater for a proposition under dispute. A defeater is a reason to doubt the justification one thought one had in believing a certain proposition to be true. While there are dynamic views in the literature, conciliationism and non-conciliationism represent the two most defended positions. This debate has highlighted a number of interesting and underexplored ideas in epistemology, such as the distinction between first-order and second-order reasons, the uniqueness thesis, and independence requirements. I develop and defend an underexplored argument in favour of non-conciliationism. A researcher may be reasonable to remain steadfast in the face of disagreement about a proposition related to her research if doing so will yield epistemic benefits. I draw on two main sources of evidence for this claim: (i) there are numerous real-life examples where this occurs, and (ii) there is empirical evidence to suggest that cognitive diversity helps enhance prediction and problem-solving. The most pressing objection to this argument is that it conflates practical reasons with epistemic reasons. I argue that this objection fails because the reasons in question actually are epistemic. A better distinction is one between synchronic epistemic reasons and diachronic epistemic reasons. I then explore how far, if at all, this argument can be taken beyond research contexts. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The phenomenon of laughter has intrigued many philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and – most recently – linguists. While laughter is conventionally thought of as a component of the phenomenon of humor, this paper seeks to empirically illustrate how laughter may be used in unconventional ways, i.e. in response to nonhumorous (and in fact discordant) sequences in conversation. The term coping laughter refers to laughter that attempts to remedy, correct, reframe, or distract from something that is undesirable in a conversation. This paper proposes that there are two types of coping laughter (IN-laughter and RE-laughter) that accomplish different functions based on who initiates the laughter. Eight data samples are analyzed within the analytical frameworks of politeness and conversational framing with special treatments of the evolution of laughter and the structure of conflict. / text

The objective of this study, based on the theories of Facework (Goffman 1967) and Politeness (Brown & Levinson 1978, 1987), is to observe and establish a classification of mitigating strategies used by two groups of friends to express and deal with disagreement and criticism in French. After a critical review of the development of sociopragmatics and of essential notions for the analysis of interactions, the concept of mitigation is presented, including mitigation used in the context of disagreement and criticism. The fieldwork and the transcription process and new conventions are then presented and discussed. For the analysis, three episodes from recordings of naturally-occurring conversations between friends were selected and transcribed. The data were analysed and classified in context with a view to defining both the pragmatic functions of the various mitigators and how they tend to be used by the speakers. The results of the analysis have allowed us to establish a classification of micro-mitigating-strategies within macro-strategies, and to show that speakers were able to mitigate disagreement and criticism, in order of descending frequency, by converging towards the interlocutor, by using modalised forms, by using a didactic, clarificatory speech style, but also by realising a "décrochage énonciatif" (enunciation disconnection) and trying to avoid or minimise the Face Threatening Acts. These observations contribute to the study of mitigating disagreement and criticism among friends, provide initial evidence of a considerable variation in the use of mitigating strategies in conversational French and call for further analysis of this type of conversation in order to determine to what extent these uses of mitigators result from a social behaviour specific to this type of interactional situation or speech acts.

The core pluralist thesis about logic, broadly construed, is the claim that two or more logics are correct. In this thesis I discuss a uniquely interesting variant of logical pluralism that I call logical contextualism. Roughly, the logical contextualists’ thought is that, for fixed values p and q, the statement “p entails q” and its cognates such as “q is a logical consequence of p” or “the argument from p to q is logically valid,” are true in some contexts and false in others. After developing a contextualist account of logical pluralism I proceed to examine implications that, if true, logical contextualism would have on discussions about reasonable disagreement among epistemic peers and on discussions about the aim and purpose of argumentation. I show that logical contextualism allows for the possibility of logically-based reasonable disagreements among epistemic peers. In the face of such disagreements there is no obligation to revise one’s belief, nor is there any obligation to degrade the peer status of the agent with whom one stands in disagreement. The possibility of logically-based reasonable disagreements, it will be argued, suggests a reconceptualization of the aims and purpose of argumentation. Most accounts of the purpose of argumentation hold that argumentation’s primary purpose is to achieve rational agreement on a contested issue. Such an agreement is thought to require that at least one of the parties in the argumentation change their beliefs or commitments. However, the existence of logically-based reasonable disagreements, I argue, implies that there are some argumentations that ought not to resolve with agreement. Therefore, rather than understanding argumentation as purely an effort to convince an opponent, or as a means to reach consensus, I claim that argumentation ought to be understood as an effort to gain a better understanding of divergent and perhaps irreconcilable perspectives.

In the Chinese village Wukan, violence between the authorities and protesters took place when farmers resisted land transaction 2011. Wukan is one out of about ten thousand local protests annually in China, but unique in the modern Chinese history since it resulted in suspension of land transaction and the leaders of the protest where elected into the village committee, in an election which is considered by external observers as the most democratic in China. The aim of this paper is to understand destructive and constructive processes emerging out of interaction between protesters and the authorities. The focus is on how the actors (the authorities vs. protesting farmers) interpret their opportunities to: a) understand the intention of the other, b) be understood by the other, and c) influence the action of the other, in the different phases of the conflict. The conclusion is that when actors respond to disagreement with discursive closure, the destructivity increases, and vice versa.

This dissertation consists of three independent essays. Chapter 1, "The Effect of Mortgage Securitization on Foreclosure and Modification," assesses the impact of mortgage securitization on foreclosure and modification. My primary innovation is using the freeze of private mortgage securitization in the third quarter of 2007 to instrument for the probability that a loan is securitized. I find that privately securitized mortgages are substantially more likely to be foreclosed and less likely to be modified. Chapter 2, "Disagreement and Liquidity," analyzes how disagreement between investors affects the relationship between trading, liquidity, and asymmetric information. Traditional models predict that asymmetric information should destroy trade and liquidity. In contrast, I document empirical evidence that asymmetric information increases trading volumes in stock, corporate bond, and option markets. To resolve this puzzle, I propose a model of overconfident disagreement trading in which private information enhances trading and liquidity. Chapter 3, "Is Real Interest Rate Risk Priced? Theory and Empirical Evidence," asks whether investors demand compensation for holding assets whose returns covary with real interest rate shocks. Empirically, there is little evidence that real interest rate risk is priced in the cross section of stocks or across asset classes. Theoretically, interest rate risk can be positively or negatively priced depending on whether interest rate changes are due to time preference shocks or consumption growth shocks.

The core pluralist thesis about logic, broadly construed, is the claim that two or more logics are correct. In this thesis I discuss a uniquely interesting variant of logical pluralism that I call logical contextualism. Roughly, the logical contextualists’ thought is that, for fixed values p and q, the statement “p entails q” and its cognates such as “q is a logical consequence of p” or “the argument from p to q is logically valid,” are true in some contexts and false in others. After developing a contextualist account of logical pluralism I proceed to examine implications that, if true, logical contextualism would have on discussions about reasonable disagreement among epistemic peers and on discussions about the aim and purpose of argumentation. I show that logical contextualism allows for the possibility of logically-based reasonable disagreements among epistemic peers. In the face of such disagreements there is no obligation to revise one’s belief, nor is there any obligation to degrade the peer status of the agent with whom one stands in disagreement. The possibility of logically-based reasonable disagreements, it will be argued, suggests a reconceptualization of the aims and purpose of argumentation. Most accounts of the purpose of argumentation hold that argumentation’s primary purpose is to achieve rational agreement on a contested issue. Such an agreement is thought to require that at least one of the parties in the argumentation change their beliefs or commitments. However, the existence of logically-based reasonable disagreements, I argue, implies that there are some argumentations that ought not to resolve with agreement. Therefore, rather than understanding argumentation as purely an effort to convince an opponent, or as a means to reach consensus, I claim that argumentation ought to be understood as an effort to gain a better understanding of divergent and perhaps irreconcilable perspectives.

Cette recherche propose d’examiner les marqueurs de l’anglais à la lumière du concept de polyphonie, abondamment utilisé en linguistique du français. Cette étude du cas de l’interro-négative en anglais questionne le caractère opératoire de ce concept : renseigne-t-il aussi le fonctionnement de la langue anglaise ?Pour répondre à cette question, nous proposons tout d’abord un retour sur les bases théoriques qui ont inspiré notre travail, pour les mettre ensuite à l’épreuve de nos occurrences d’interro-négatives extraites de notre corpus de nouvelles de Raymond Carver. Nous analysons ainsi, dans un premier temps, les interro-négatives sans pronom interrogatif, introduites par isn’t, don’t et didn’t. Dans un deuxième temps, nous portons notre attention sur la question ouverte introduite par le pronom interrogatif why. Enfin, les question-tags sont abordées : elles permettent d’asseoir notre thèse quant à la place importante qu’occupe l’interlocuteur dans la construction de message. A cet égard, nous réhabilitons son rôle dans le processus de construction de message en lui attribuant celui de co-constructeur / This research examines English linguistic markers using the concept of ‘polyphony’, i.e. intersubjectivity, a concept that is key to many studies in French linguistics. More precisely, we examine how negative interrogative constructions in English work, while also exploring the possibility that they may shed light on how the English linguistic system functions as a whole.To do so, we begin by reviewing the theoretical work that inspired our study. This earlier work is then applied to our corpus of negative interrogatives, which were sourced from a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver. Our analysis begins by looking at negative interrogatives that do not contain interrogative pronouns – more precisely, those introduced by isn’t, don’t and didn’t. Then, we focus our attention on wh-questions introduced by the interrogative pronoun why. Finally, we look at tag questions: this allows us to anchor our work in a place that accords primary importance to the interlocutor in the construction of linguistic messages. As far as this is concerned, we redefine the interlocutor’s role in this process by considering them a co-constructor of the linguistic message