The aim of this paper is to analyze the strategic behavior of the leading firms on the Swedish wholesale electricity market. This thesis wishes to address the competition situation on the market and how the firms can manipulate the price in order to maximize the profits. The Swedish electricity market was deregulated in 1996 and the predicted outcome was that the competition on the market would increase. However, today’s market is highly vertically integrated with three dominating firms; Vattenfall, E.ON, and Fortum. Moreover, the market has similar characteristics of an oligopoly with high entry barriers, limited room for product differentiation, and limited access of information. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and the Lerner Index show that the wholesale electricity market is highly concentrated and that market power exists. Besides external factors that affect the electricity price, such as emission trading and the amount of water in the reservoirs, the leading firms can with their market power manipulate the price. This can be done by preventing new entrants to enter the market which has led to underinvestment in new capacity with lower production costs.

<p>The aim of this paper is to analyze the strategic behavior of the leading firms on the Swedish wholesale electricity market. This thesis wishes to address the competition situation on the market and how the firms can manipulate the price in order to maximize the profits.</p><p>The Swedish electricity market was deregulated in 1996 and the predicted outcome was that the competition on the market would increase. However, today’s market is highly vertically integrated with three dominating firms; Vattenfall, E.ON, and Fortum. Moreover, the market has similar characteristics of an oligopoly with high entry barriers, limited room for product differentiation, and limited access of information.</p><p>The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index and the Lerner Index show that the wholesale electricity market is highly concentrated and that market power exists.</p><p>Besides external factors that affect the electricity price, such as emission trading and the amount of water in the reservoirs, the leading firms can with their market power manipulate the price. This can be done by preventing new entrants to enter the market which has led to underinvestment in new capacity with lower production costs.</p>

This thesis will examine whether the price level on the market of mobile services in comparison with other countries is high or not. After performing own international price comparison which revealed high price level in both analyzed consumer baskets thesis offers some possible options which could lead to the current high price level on the market. The observed high market concentration is one of the possible solutions and leads to discover several solutions whose analysis shows that high price level in the Czech mobile services market cannot be associated with only one factor. The price level is mainly affected by the absence of more operators which can be partly attributed to the insufficient steps of market regulator - ČTÚ especially in the area of termination fees and lease licenses to operating in mobile networks. Both of these steps are also very important for the future development of the market.

In my thesis I analyse the development of the banking system of Ukraine and the assessment of the concentration level of the banking system in conditions of crisis 2014-2015. The theoretical part is devoted to classification and causes of the banking crisis; also, it describes the historical aspects of crisis formation in Ukraine. The practical part is focused on the evaluation of the financial security level and macroeconomic situation in Ukraine. This part emphasises problems and the specifics of functioning of domestic banks. In addition, it considers the concentration level of the banking market. The analysis performed shows that the banking crisis is the result of accumulated macroeconomic imbalances of the past and present mistakes in the implementation of anti-crisis policy. Currently the efficient functioning of most domestic banks remains at insufficient level.

Studien går ut på att analysera marknadsstrukturen för två industriföretag(Holmen och SCA) under antagandet att båda konkurrerar mot varandragenom att köpa rå material samt genom att sälja förädlade produkter.Produktmarknaden som undersöks är pappersmarknaden och antas varakoncentrerad. Rå materialmknaden som undersöks ärmassavedmarknaden och antas karaktäriseras som en duopsony. Detvisade sig att Holmen och SCA köper massaved från en stor mängdskogsägare. Varje företag skapar varje månad en prislista där de bestämmerbud priset föassaved. Priset varierar beroende på region. Både SCA ochHolmen väljer mellan två strategiska beslut, antigen att buda högt pris ellerlågt pris. Genom spelteori så visade det sig att båda industriföretagenanvänder mixade strategier då de i vissa tillfällen budar högt och i andratillfällen budar lågt. Nash jämviktslägen för mixade strategier räknades utmatematiskt och analyserades genom dynamisk spelteori.Marknadskoncentrationen för pappersmarknaden undersöktes viaHerfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI). Porters femkraftsmodell användes föratt analysera industri konkurrensen. Resultatet visade attproduktmarknaden är koncentrerad då HHI testerna gav höga indexvärdenmellan 3100 och 1700. Det existerade dessutom ett Nash jämviktsläge fö mixade strategier som gav SCA förväntad lönsamhet 1651 miljoner kronoroch Holmen 1295 miljoner kronor. Dynamisk spelteori visade att SCA ochHolmens budgivning följer ett mönster och att högt/lågt bud beror påavvikelser från Nash jämviktslägets sannolikhetsdistribution. Nashjämviktslägets råder ifall sannolikhetsdistributionerna vid låg budgivningär 68,6 procent för SCA och 66,7 procent för Holmen. Detta gav indikatore för icke samarbetsvilliga spel. Slutsatsen är att om två spelare (kvarnar) når / The research aims to analyze the market structure of two companies in th forest industry (Holmen and SCA) with the assumption that thes companies compete at buying raw materials and selling products. Theproduct market in this study is the paper market under the assumption thatboth companies operate in a concentrated product market. The rawmatial market that one investigates in this study is the pulpwood marketunder the assumption that it is a duopsony. What this study has concludedis that Holmen and SCA buy pulpwood from lots of different self-managingforest owners. Each company creates a monthly pricelist where they decidethe bid price of pulpwood. The amount varies depending on the region. Bot SCA and Holmen chooses between two strategic decisions, either to bid highor to bid low. Through game theory, it has been clear that each company usesmixed strategies as they sometimes give high bids and sometimes give lowbids. The Nash equilibrium for mixed strategies have been calculatedmathematically and analyzed through the dynamics of game theory. As fore market concentration, the product market has been investigatedthrough the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI). Porter's five-force modelwas used to analyze the industry competition. The results showed that theproduct market is concentrated as the HHI tests gave High index scoresbetween 3100 and 1700. In addition, there existed a Nash equilibrium in amixed strategy that gave SCA expected payoff 1651 million SEK and Holmen1295 million SEK. The dynamic game theory showed that SCA and Holmen'sbidding follows a repeating trajectory and that the high/low bidding is dueto deviations from Nash equilibrium probability distribution. The Nashequilibrium situation prevails if the probability distribution at low biddingis 68.6 percent for SCA and 66,7 percent for Holmen. This providedindicators for a non-cooperative game. The conclusion is that if two players

This thesis presents an econometric methodology for analyzing the impact of market concentration (HHI) on the day rate prices paid by E&P operators for the lease of drilling rigs. It is an extension of the work of Lee (2008), ‘Measuring the Impact of Concentration in the Drilling Rig Market’. Specifically, the work entailed using a more detailed time series data than was initially used (quarterly), analyzing impact of concentration on day rate prices by water depth specification of drilling rigs, and accounting for the impact of autocorrelation on the analysis. The results for jack-ups, without adjustment for autocorrelation, supported the results of the prior study i.e. showing that increase in HHI causes rig day rate price increase. However, the results for semi-submersibles was inconclusive as it varied from region to region and also was contrary to the assumptions of positive relationships between HHI and day rate prices made in this study. These results imply that market concentration caused both price increase and decrease within the industry depending on whether it increased market power or increased cost efficiency and technological ability. / text

No description available.

The general focus of my dissertation, which consists of two essays, is on how changes in the financial and economic environment surrounding a firm affect managerial incentives and firm policies regarding investment in physical capital, innovation, equity offerings, and repurchases. The first essay in my dissertation examines how product market competition affects firms' investment decisions. While competition among firms benefits consumers via lower prices, greater product variety, higher product quality, and greater innovation, recent studies provide evidence that competition has been declining in the U.S. economy over the past decade. The evidence shows that American firms' profits are at near-record levels relative to GDP and are persistent. Industries have become more concentrated as a result of mergers and acquisitions, and barriers to entry have risen and the rate of new entry has been declining for decades. Taking these findings at face value, we examine empirically whether companies feel less compelled to invest in physical capital and in research and development because they face fewer threats from rival firms. Using both traditional proxies and recently developed text-based measures of industry concentration, we show that firms operating in competitive industries invest significantly more in both physical capital and research and development relative to their peers in concentrated industries. We also report that the propensity to invest less by managers of monopolistic firms is partially mitigated by superior corporate governance that reduces the agency problem, and by certain product market characteristics such as low pricing power and low product differentiation/entry barriers. However, after accounting for all these mitigating factors, the negative association between industry concentration and investment persists. Our results are robust to including various control variables and exclusion of firms from industries that face significant competition from imports. The results are also robust to controlling for endogeneity caused by missing time-invariant and time-varying industry level factors that could potentially be related to both the level of concentration and investments. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that firms in competitive industries have a greater incentive to invest and innovate to survive and thrive in a competitive environment relative to the managers of the firms in more concentrated industries whose incentive to invest and innovate is to maintain their monopoly rents. Our findings have obvious policy implications in that investment and hence economic growth is being adversely affected in the current era of increasing industry concentration and declining competition. The second essay in my dissertation investigates whether information contained in equity issues and buybacks is fully incorporated into prices such that the market reaction to subsequent earnings announcements is unrelated to those corporate actions. Korajczyk at al. (1991) argue that firms prefer to issue equity when the market is most informed about the quality of the firm to prevent adverse selection costs associated with new equity issues. This implies that equity issues tend to follow credible information releases contained in earnings announcements. However, analyzing a sample of 19,466 SEO pricing dates between 1970 and 2015 and 15,106 buyback announcements between 1994 and 2015 shows that a considerable number of equity offerings and repurchase announcements take place before the announcement of earnings. About 28% of buybacks and 32% of SEO pricings are made in the three weeks prior to an earnings announcement. Given these statistics, we examine whether these corporate actions provide information about upcoming earnings announcements (earnings predictability) to the extent that new information has not been fully incorporated into prices by market participants. We find evidence of earnings predictability: the market reaction to earnings following buyback announcements is higher by 5.1% than the reaction to earnings following equity issues over the (-1,+30) window when four-factor abnormal returns are used; the difference is 2.2% when unadjusted returns are considered. The results are robust to several alternate sample construction methodologies. There are at least two puzzling effects of earnings predictability that are difficult to reconcile with the market efficiency hypothesis. First, there is an incomplete adjustment to SEO pricings and buyback announcements that results in residual market reaction to earnings announcements. Second, prices continue to drift after earnings announcements: upward for buybacks and downward for SEO pricings. Unlike post-earnings announcement drift, the drift documented here does not depend on the market reaction to earnings announcement. We test several reasons for this anomalous behavior including prior returns, price, size of buyback or SEO, analyst forecast errors, and bid-ask spread. We find that information asymmetry proxies partially explain the persistence of earnings predictability following SEO pricings and buyback announcements. / Ph. D. / It is well documented that corporate investments in research and development (R&D) and physical capital are important drivers of economic growth and higher standards of living. Recent articles published by academic community and popular press have provided evidence that the overall competition among U.S. firms has declined. The evidence shows that concentration has increased in 75% of the US industries, the economy has lost about 50% of its publicly traded firms, and the rate of new-business formation has fallen. Given the documented association between corporate investments and economic growth & social welfare, a natural question arising would be whether declining competition is detrimental to investment in both physical capital and R&D. The first chapter of my dissertation aims to answer this question by examining whether companies feel less compelled to invest in physical capital and in R&D because they face fewer threats from rival firms. Our findings show that firms operating in concentrated industries invest significantly less in both physical capital and research and development relative to their peers in competitive industries, consistent with the notion that firms in competitive industries have a greater incentive to invest and innovate to survive and thrive in a competitive environment relative to the managers of the firms in more concentrated industries whose incentive to invest and innovate is to maintain their monopoly rents. Our findings have obvious policy implications in that investment and hence economic growth is being adversely affected in the current era of increasing industry concentration and declining competition. The wealth of the shareholders of publicly traded firms is tied to managers’ decisions about corporate actions such as equity offerings, buybacks, dividends, and mergers as these actions can potentially affect the stock prices and the value of shareholders’ portfolios. The second part of my dissertation investigates whether buybacks or equity offerings announced within a few weeks prior to earnings provide information about upcoming earnings announcements to the extent that new information has not been fully incorporated into prices by market participants. We find that earnings coming after equity offerings are likely to contain bad news and earnings coming after buybacks are likely to contain good news. This implies that buying the shares of the companies that announce a buyback before their earnings and short selling the shares of the companies that issue equity before their earnings will yield a significant return for the investors.

多角化是否能提升銀行獲利與降低風險？本文採2000年至2007年21家本國銀行之年資料，獲利以調整呆帳費用後之資產報酬率作為評估基礎；風險以資產報酬率的標準差衡量，利用追蹤資料分析法，探討銀行多角化程度對獲利與風險之影響，並分析對於逾放比率不同之銀行，其獲利、風險之影響因素是否有所差異，實證結果顯示：一、依品質一致性原則調整呆帳後之資產報酬率，較財報公佈之資產報酬率具較佳之解釋能力與統計顯著性；二、營業收入多角化可提升獲利與降低風險；資產配置多角化不但無法提升獲利，甚使其面臨更高之風險；轉投資模式與風險具有負向關係；三、金融控股公司經營模式與獲利具有正向關係；資產規模與風險具有負向關係；權益資產比及用人費用率與獲利、風險具有負向關係；總體環境因素和風險具有正向關係；四、對於低逾放比率銀行，分散營業收入來源，擴充銀行規模及提高自有資金比例，對其獲利與風險皆有正面之助益；對於高逾放比率銀行，僅有營業收入多角化模式可同時提升獲利與降低風險，意謂此類銀行除可採取營業收入多角化策略彌補呆帳損失外，亦應確實監控授信資產品質，方能有效地改善獲利能力與降低風險。 / Does diversification indeed lead to increase profitability and reduce risk? We use a panel dataset of 21 banks in Taiwan for the period from 2000 to 2007, bad debt-adjusted ROA serves as the measure of profitability and the standard deviation of ROA serves as the measure of risk. This study investigate the effect of diversification on profitability and risk and hope to know how it works out under different non-performing loans ratio. Our main finding are as follows:(i)Compare with ROA in financial statement ,bad debt-adjusted ROA making better significance. (ii)Revenue diversification has positive relation to increase profitability and negative to reduce risk. Asset diversification has negative relation to reduce profitability and positive relation to increase risk. Equity investment has negative relation between risk. (iii) Banks operating as part of financial holding companies can improve profitability. Size has negative relation between risk. Equity to asset ratio and compensation to revenue ratio have negative relation to reduce both profitability and risk. Macroeconomic factor has positive relation to increase risk.(iv)For low non-performing loans ratio banks, revenue diversification, size and equity to asset ratio have positive relation to increase profitability and negative to reduce risk. For high non-performing loans ratio banks, revenue diversification is the only way to improve banks’ profitability and reduce risk. It draws a conclusion that banks monitor loan need strengthening in high non-performing loans ratio banks.

Procurement centralization is a process that includes policy decisions on the appropriate level of collaboration, aggregation and standardization. We analyse the main aspects of collaborative procurement: centralization, scope and different market structures. We use a unique dataset that combines Czech tender-level data with the manually-collected data on centrally procured tenders and financial firm-level data for the time span 2008 - 2016. We apply vector generalized linear model to the compulsory centralized procurement sectors and assess the market competition and concentration. We find several key aspects of centralized procurement: the centralization has a significant positive impact on the competition in selected sectors. The framework agreement is recognized as a positive setup of public procurement. We identified a strong negative evidence of the heterogeneity of the procured commodity. The design of centralization process and the degree of centralization is always bound by two elementary questions: the flexibility or unification trade-off and the set-up costs or unit costs trade-off. JEL Classification D44, H11, H57 Keywords public procurement, centralization, tender- level data, firm-level data, market structure, concentration index, vector generalized linear model, Herfindahl-Hirschman...