This dissertation examines various corporate equity transactions. Unlike Dutch auction repurchases and tender offers, open-market repurchase programs do not precommit firms to acquire a specified number of shares. In chapter one, we find that during the three years following the announcement firms on average acquire 74 to 82 percent of the shares they originally targeted. Further, we report evidence of managers exploiting the inherent flexibility of open-market repurchase programs; actual repurchases are negatively related with prior stock returns and positively related to the firm's cash flows. Chapter two continues the examination open-market repurchase programs. Heterogeneity among the impounded capital gains and effective capital gains tax rates of investors result in an upward sloping supply curve for firms attempting to repurchase their shares in the open-market. Cross-sectional differences in the excess returns observed around the announcement of open-market repurchase programs are positively related to investors' cost basis and negatively related to their impounded capital gains. Additionally, these relationships appear robust to differing tax regimes; however, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 did appear to decrease the tax shelter value of capital losses. Finally, chapter three examines seasoned equity offers, intuitively the other side of the coin from share repurchases. Specifically, seasoned equity offers by electric utilities are analyzed to exploit the regulated environment of the electric utility industry. Unlike the announcement of a seasoned equity offer by an industrial firm, a similar offering and announcement by a public utility is relatively predictable; no new information is provided by the announcement and should not effect stock price. Equity offers by electric utilities should not surprise investors and it is anomalous to observe any price effects, much less to differentially explain these effects by systematic differences in regulation. Empirical results for the time period 1972 through 1984 indicate that the excess returns observed around the announcement of a seasoned equity issue by an electric utility are largely a result of the inadequate or delayed response by regulators being impounded into the equity price. In effect, our results show that old shareholders are temporarily required to subsidize the return on the new equity.

Abstract not available.

Scholars have argued that well-governed firms achieve better firm performance. This study addresses the question of whether a relationship exists between corporate governance mechanisms and the performance of non-financial firms listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE). The study combines quantitative (OLS panel regression analysis) and qualitative (interviews) methods. Such triangulation will improve the understanding of the underlying process. The quantitative data produced mixed results. According to the OLS regressions, some governance mechanisms (e.g., non-executive directors, family members on boards, and dividends) positively relate to firm performance value while debt and ownership concentration (based on ROA only) negatively relate to firm performance. However, when the governance mechanisms are treated endogenously using 2SLS regression, based on both measures (Tobin's Q and ROA), several corporate governance principles, such as board size and role duality, have no relationship with firm performance whereas dividends and family directors positively impact firm performance. However, the ownership concentration, proportion of non-executive directors, and debt produced mixed results. The Hausman test provides evidence that the governance mechanisms are endogenous. In addition, if any causal relationship does exist, it would be from the governance mechanism structure to firm performance. The main findings of the qualitative data are similar. A significant change has emerged in Kuwaiti trends related to corporate governance, yet the current corporate governance principles in Kuwait are perceived as irrelevant. Ownership structure provides minority shareholders with weak rights. Meanwhile, family members on boards and role duality produce mixed views. However, other board variables such as the proportion of non-executive directors and board size are not effective. Finally, high dividends mean high firm performance while high debt leads to financial risks and problems with limited roles for Kuwaiti banks in monitoring.

<p> Many researchers have studied different strategies of statistical arbitrage to provide a steady stream of returns that are unrelated to the market condition. Among different strategies, factor-based mean reverting strategies have been popular and covered by many. This thesis aims to add value by evaluating the generalized pairs trading strategy and suggest enhancements to improve out-of-sample performance. The enhanced strategy generated the daily Sharpe ratio of 6.07% in the out-of-sample period from January 2013 through October 2016 with the correlation of -.03 versus S&amp;P 500. During the same period, S&amp;P 500 generated the Sharpe ratio of 6.03%. </p><p> This thesis is differentiated from the previous relevant studies in the following three ways. First, the factor selection process in previous statistical arbitrage studies has been often unclear or rather subjective. Second, most literature focus on in-sample results, rather than out-of-sample results of the strategies, which is what the practitioners are mainly interested in. Third, by implementing hidden Markov model, it aims to detect regime change to improve the timing the trade.</p>

The surge of inequality in the past three decades in the United States is associated with the financialization of the US economy. By financialization I refer to two interdependent processes. One is the increasing influence of the financial sector over the US economy. The second process is the increasing participation of the non-finance firms in the financial markets. Evidence presented in this dissertation shows that financialization has profound impacts on income dynamics and employment growth in the United States. As the centrality of the finance sector increases, financial firms and their favored workers capture more resources from the economy. When non-financial firms channel their resources and attention from the productive units to their financial arms, they exclude labor from the revenue generating process and therefore diminish the bargaining power of workers. Furthermore, as resources are engineered toward speculative activities and the shareholders, employment growth and security decline, particularly for middle-class workers. I discuss the policy implications at the end.

Conventional finance theory argues that the market's estimate of expected future cash flows and the risk associated with these cash flows are important factors in determining the market value of the firm. For a given estimate of firm value, the division into a particular combination of price per share and number of shares should not matter. However, casual observation indicates that stock prices cluster. In this dissertation, we investigate whether there are any economic or behavioral reasons that lead firms to choose a particular share price. We focus on two events where firms explicitly make a choice of the price level---share splits and initial public offers The first essay investigates share splits announced by mutual funds. We argue that in the case of mutual fund share splits, the usual explanations that have been advanced for common stock splits, i.e. signaling and liquidity, do not apply. The evidence suggests that like common stocks, mutual funds also split after a period of strong performance. This strong performance is not sustained in the post-split period. There is little evidence that the risk characteristics change after the split. However, relative to a matching fund, the splitting funds experience an increase in the inflow of new money in the quarter of the split and the subsequent two quarters. We also present evidence suggesting that a split aligns the post-split prices more closely with that prevailing in the industry. Overall, our results are consistent with small investors' exhibiting a preference for assets priced in a particular price range, and the price thereby affecting the marketability of financial assets The second essay investigates whether the choice of offer price in initial public offers of common stock is related to the short-term and long-term performance. Our main result is that underpricing in an IPO exhibits a U-shaped pattern in offer price. We also show that institutional ownership increases with offer price. Taken together, this evidence is consistent with the characterization of low priced IPOs as riskier investments where underpricing compensates investors for higher information costs; and higher-priced IPOs as targeted towards institutions where underpricing compensates the institutions for future monitoring costs / acase@tulane.edu

No description available.

In analyses of the relationship between information and price-volume reactions, the role of investor expectations is often considered implicitly. Not allowing investors to either disagree among each other or remain uninformed is a consequence of the assumption of a free and perfect information flow. A more flexible definition of information allows the observation that trading volume is an accurate reflector of investor expectations and contains valuable information about price movements. Trading volume is also used to empirically show the effects of imperfect information and the inappropriateness of the event study method.

This thesis investigates two issues. The first issue concerns the relation between executive effort, as measured by changes in a firm's market value of equity, and future wage revisions when the executive moves to a new firm of employment. If, as Fama (1980) contends, participants in the managerial labor market formulate compensation on the basis of prior performance, there is little need to design compensation contracts that are sensitive to firm performance. The second issue involves performance persistence in the management of real assets. Prior studies provide weak evidence that performance is persistent in the management of financial assets. Similar evidence is not available for the management of real assets. / The analyses provide two distinct conclusions. First, compensation revisions across firms bear a positive and significant relation to prior changes in shareholder wealth. The magnitude of this relation, however, does not preclude the continued existence of agency problems. Second, executives appear unable to repeat superior performance across firms. Surprisingly, there is evidence of declining performance at executives' second firm of employment. This result is robust to different performance relatives and time horizons. / Thus, the evidence presented suggests that prior performance is not the decisive determinant of the wage revision received by an executive. This seems warranted given that prior performance appears to offer no predictive power for future performance. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-02, Section: A, page: 0793. / Major Professor: James S. Ang. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1996.

This study presents the theoretical and empirical foundations of a proposed alternative revenue source to finance K-12 education in the state of Florida. It provides the philosophical perspectives of public funding of education in the context of presenting the need for government support of educational services. The problem that the state has been experiencing in the lack of adequate and stable funding source for K-12 education is then introduced. The study then moves on to discuss possible alternatives to the existing revenue source. Using the pre-determined level of state K-12 expenditures, a household income tax is introduced as a possible alternative. The proposed tax is evaluated in terms of the "net direct benefits" received by the various income groups. The impact of the tax by region along with other district characteristics is examined to detect its compliance with the state funding program. Net benefits derived by households with schoolage children are estimated using various proxies to predict the impact of the tax. The second part of the study draws implications from applying a discrete choice statistical model to a state survey in order to assess the willingness of the voting public to support the proposed tax structure. The political economy of the public's perception of the state fiscal problem and the need to solve it through the proposed new structure is explored. The conclusion draws implications for adopting such a tax, especially when it is specifically earmarked for state K-12 education. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-12, Section: A, page: 4626. / Major Professor: Richard Kraft. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.