Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-69). Also available online in Scholars' Bank; and in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

<p>This study examines the relationship between stock prices and accounting figures, primarily the book value of equity and earnings, as well as the market perception of accounting choices implemented by</p><p>companies. Market event studies from late sixties have initiated numerous of researches, and the majority of contemporary results were consistent with strong belief in the market efficiency theory. The</p><p>book value of equity and earnings have been proved to have the highest explanatory power of future stock prices. Other accounting-related issues, like inventory methods or accounting for business combination, were proven to have reliable impact on the stock prices. Moreover, the cash flow implications triggered by the accounting change are not an indispensable condition to influence the stock price level. Although a great body of research has treated the relationship between accounting</p><p>choices and stock prices, a clear-cut mechanism is not well specified. The evidence is inconsistent, and the consequences of accounting change are difficult to measure. However, the accounting figures</p><p>included in financial statements remain the most important measure of the companies’ performance. Due to the economic and technical progress, which considerably modified the structure of companies</p><p>and the environment in which they operate, further studies are advisable in order to maintain the reliability of accounting figures on significant level.</p>

Η πολιτική μερισμάτων απασχολεί τα Διοικητικά Συμβούλια όλων των επιχειρήσεων και λαμβάνεται υπόψη προκειμένου κάθε επιχειρηματική οντότητα να λάβει ορθές αποφάσεις για τη μελλοντική πορεία της. Στο πρώτο μέρος της εργασίας γίνεται μια εισαγωγή στο θέμα. Αναφέρονται οι στόχοι κάθε επιχείρησης, η έννοια του καθαρού κέρδους, ο ορισμός, οι τύποι και οι λειτουργίες των μερισμάτων, η έννοια της μερισματικής πολιτικής, τα είδη της και οι παράγοντες που την επηρεάζουν. Στο δεύτερο μέρος περιγράφεται ο αντικειμενικός σκοπός αυτής της εργασίας. Εν συνεχεία, στο τρίτο μέρος ακολουθεί μια σύντομη ιστορική αναδρομή, όπου γίνεται αναφορά των πιο σημαντικών μελετών κι ερευνών που έχουν διαδραματίσει σημαντικό ρόλο στη διατύπωση διαφόρων θεωριών περί μερισματικής πολιτικής. Στο τέταρτο μέρος επιχειρείται μια εμπειρική μελέτη επιχειρήσεων εισηγμένων στο Χρηματιστήριο της Νέας Υόρκης (New York Stock Exchange) έτσι ώστε να ερευνηθεί η σχέση των μερισμάτων τους με άλλα σημαντικά οικονομικά μεγέθη των εταιριών αυτών. Στο πέμπτο μέρος παρουσιάζονται τα εμπειρικά αποτελέσματα που προέκυψαν έπειτα από την εφαρμογή τριών διαφορετικών υποδειγμάτων καθώς επίσης και κάποια περιγραφικά στοιχεία. Στο έκτο και τελευταίο μέρος της διπλωματικής εργασίας αναφέρονται τα συμπεράσματα που διεξάγονται από τη μελέτη / The dividend policy employs the Boards of all businesses and taken into account in any business entity to take good decisions about their future course. In the first part of this work is an introduction to the subject. Describe the objectives of each company, the concept of profit, the definition, types and functions of dividends, the effect of dividend policy, types and factors affecting it. The second part describes the objective of this work. Subsequently, the third part follows a brief history, citing the most important studies and research have played an important role in formulating various theories on dividend policy. The fourth part attempts an empirical study of companies listed on the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange) to investigate the relationship between dividends with other key financial figures of those companies. The fifth part presents the empirical results obtained after applying three different models as well as some descriptive information. The sixth and final part of this thesis, the conclusions of the study conducted.

abstract: In this dissertation, I examine the source of some of the anomalous capital market outcomes that have been documented for firms with high accruals. Chapter 2 develops and implements a methodology that decomposes a firm's discretionary accruals into a firm-specific and an industry-specific component. I use this decomposition to investigate which component drives the subsequent negative returns associated with firms with high discretionary accruals. My results suggest that these abnormal returns are driven by the firm-specific component of discretionary accruals. Moreover, although industry-specific discretionary accruals do not directly contribute towards this anomaly, I find that it is precisely when industry-specific discretionary accruals are high that firms with high firm-specific discretionary accruals subsequently earn these negative returns. While consistent with irrational mispricing or a rational risk premium associated with high discretionary accruals, these findings also support a transactions-cost based explanation for the accruals anomaly whereby search costs associated with distinguishing between value-relevant and manipulative discretionary accruals can induce investors to overlook potential earnings manipulation. Chapter 3 extends the decomposition to examine the role of firm-specific and industry-specific discretionary accruals in explaining the subsequent market underperformance and negative analysts' forecast errors documented for firms issuing equity. I examine the post-issue market returns and analysts' forecast errors for a sample of seasoned equity issues between 1975 and 2004 and find that offering-year firm-specific discretionary accruals can partially explain these anomalous capital market outcomes. Nonetheless, I find this predictive power of firm-specific accruals to be more pronounced for issues that occur during 1975 - 1989 compared to issues taking place between 1990 and 2004. Additionally, I find no evidence that investors and analysts are more overoptimistic about the prospects of issuers that have both high firm-specific and industry-specific discretionary accruals (compared to firms with high discretionary accruals in general). The results indicate no role for industry-specific discretionary accruals in explaining overoptimistic expectations from seasoned equity issues and suggest the importance of firm-specific factors in inducing earnings manipulation surrounding equity issues. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Business Administration 2011

This paper investigates the determinants of intra-year error in annual effective tax rate estimates, relative to the actual annual effective tax rate (“ETR Miss”) and examines whether ETR Miss contains value relevant information. I find that ETR Miss is affected by both unbiased estimation errors related to the predictability of business fundamentals and biased estimation related to varying managerial incentives within the year. Firms with higher ETR Miss exhibit less persistent pre-tax earnings and earnings components, consistent with ETR Miss containing information on earnings quality. Finally, for firms with higher ETR Miss, investors place a lower weight on accounting earnings, consistent with the market incorporating information in ETR Miss for valuation assessments.

abstract: Existing literature consistently documents a relationship between book-tax differences and future financial performance. Specifically, large book-tax differences are associated with lower earnings persistence. I contend that one reason the tax information contained in financial statements is informative about future earnings is that the relationship between book income and taxable income captures information about a firm's life cycle stage. Using a life cycle measure from the literature, I use fundamental analysis to group firm-year observations into life cycle stages and document a link between book-tax differences and firm life cycle. I build on prior studies that find a relation between earnings persistence and book-tax differences, and earnings persistence and firm life cycle. I find that after controlling for firm life cycle stage, the association between large positive book-tax differences and lower earnings persistence does not hold. My results offer an economic theory based explanation for the relation between book-tax differences and earnings persistence as an alternative explanation to findings in prior research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Accountancy 2012

Cette thèse s'intéresse à l'ampleur et aux déterminants de la mobilité socio-économique intergénérationnelle. Nous nous intéressons d'abord à la transmission des revenus de pères en fils en Allemagne, en traitant soigneusement la question des biais d'estimation. Cependant, cette approche ne tient pas compte de tous les facteurs du milieu socio-économique d'un individu affectant sa réussite future. Nous considérons ensuite des corrélations au sein de fratries, comme indicateur plus large de toutes les influences familiales, d'abord en France, pour l'éducation, la profession et les revenus. Nous réalisons également une étude comparative des corrélations de revenus entre frères en France et en Suède, afin d'évaluer l'impact sur l'estimation de l'absence d'information sur les revenus permanents et de l'utilisation alternative de mesures prédites. Enfin, nous abordons la question des mécanismes sous-jacents à la transmission des inégalités. Nous explorons ainsi la possibilité d'utiliser les événements de mai 1968 en France comme expérience naturelle pour identifier et mesurer le lien causal entre éducation des parents et des enfants. / This thesis investigates the extent and determinants of the intergenerational socioeconomic mobility. We first investigate the earnings transmission from fathers to sons in Germany, carefully addressing the question of biases in the estimation. However, this approach fails at taking account of all factors from the socioeconomic background of an individual affecting future success in life. We then consider sibling correlations as a broader indicator of all family influences, first in France, for education, profession and earnings. We also conduct a comparative study of the brother earnings correlation in France and Sweden to assess the impact on the estimation of the lack of information about permanent earnings and the use of predicted measures instead. Finally, we address the question of the mechanisms underlying the transmission of inequality. We thus explore the possibility to use the events of May 1968 in France as a natural experiment to identify and measure the causal link between parental and children's education.

Esta dissertação é composta por dois ensaios, ambos se referem aos jovens brasileiros. O primeiro deles, busca identificar características ligadas à alocação do tempo entre trabalhar e estudar. Para tal duas definições de trabalho são utilizadas, a de ocupação remunerada, e outra que inclui também os trabalhos sem remuneração, entre estes à responsabilidade sobre os afazeres domésticos. Na primeira definição, destacaram-se o papel da educação dos pais e da renda do domicílio, reforçando a idéia de que existe uma transmissão intergeracional da educação e de oportunidades. Além disso, habitar o meio rural e o casamento foram identificados como maiores influências para que as jovens não estivessem mais estudando, principalmente na definição que inclui os afazeres domésticos. Ainda, no que se refere à probabilidade de ser NEET, isto é, jovem que não estuda e não trabalha, a comparação entre as duas definições mostrou que quando se consideram apenas o trabalho remunerado, as mulheres possuem elevadas chances de estarem nesta categoria e, inclusive, com menor tendência de queda nestes valores com a idade. Já o segundo ensaio objetiva identificar os determinantes dos salários dos jovens. Neste sentido, o nível educacional e o papel do mercado formal de trabalho foram destacados os principais promotores de melhores salários, beneficiando principalmente as mulheres. Assim, de forma geral, destacou-se a necessidade de buscar instrumentos que permitam uma maior conciliação entre os afazeres domésticos, o mercado de trabalho e os estudos. Além de ressaltar a necessidade de políticas que promovam a formalidade no mercado de trabalho e incentivem a escolaridade, dois aspectos cruciais para reduzir a desigualdade de gênero. / This dissertation consists of two essays, both refer to young people living in Brazil. The first essay seeks to identify characteristics related to the allocation of time between work and study. For that, two definitions of work are used, one considering only paid labor, and the other including unpaid labor, among these are the responsibility for housework. In the first definition, the role of parents’ education and household income are underlined, reinforcing the idea that there is an intergenerational transmission of education and opportunities. Furthermore, living in rural areas and marriage were identified as major influences for the youth being outside of school, especially in the definition that includes the housework. Besides that, with regard to the likelihood of being a NEET, the comparison between the two definitions showed that when only paid work was considered, women have higher chances of being in this category, and with a less downward trend in these probabilities with age. The second study aims to identify the determinants of wages of young people. In this sense, the educational level and the role of the formal labor market were highlighted as major promoter of better wages, benefiting mainly women. Thus, in general, the results of this dissertation emphasize the need for the adoption of tools so that women can be more able to combine housework, market work and study. In addition, it highlights the need for policies that promote labor market formality and encourage schooling, two crucial aspects to reduce gender inequality.

abstract: While credit rating agencies use both forward-looking and historical information in evaluating a firm's credit risk, the role of forward-looking information in their rating decisions is not well understood. In this study, I examine the association between management earnings guidance news and future credit rating changes. While upward earnings guidance is not informative for credit rating changes, downward earnings guidance is significantly and positively associated with both the likelihood and speed of rating downgrades. In cross-sectional analyses, I find that downward guidance is especially informative in two important circumstances: (i) when a firm's current credit rating is overly optimistic compared to a model predicted rating, and (ii) when the relevance or reliability of alternative information sources is lower. In addition, I find that downward guidance is associated with lower future cash flows, as well as a higher volatility of future cash flows. Overall, the results are consistent with credit rating agencies incorporating voluntary bad news disclosures into their decisions about whether and when to downgrade a firm. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Accountancy 2015

During a lifetime an individual is faced with the decision whether or not to pursue additional years of education, and one may ask if this will generate some sort of payoff, for example, if higher earnings is to be received later in life. The aim of this paper is to investigate how an individual’s earnings is affected by the amount of years one spends in school and also to see if gender and experience are contributing factors. We will investigate these relationships by first introducing the two theories “Human Capital” and “The Mincer Equation”. These build upon each other and are connected. Thereafter, modifications of the Standard Mincer equation will develop our four different regression equations. These regressions will be run on an American cross-sectional data set, by use of the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). Our chosen explanatory variables do affect earnings and the specific data set shows that additional years of schooling do increase earnings. We also found a distinct difference in hourly earnings between men and women.