In this dissertation, I investigate whether corporate governance affects the negative association between investment and future excess returns. Shareholders are concerned with the effectiveness of the firm's governance regime as a tool to reduce agency costs. In the absence of strong control over firm assets, managers may choose to invest in value-decreasing projects. The probability that managers select value-decreasing projects is an increasing (decreasing) function in investment activity (governance regime). At the time of investment, the capital market prices expected returns to the investment activity conditioned on the governance regime in place. This study examines future risk-adjusted returns to investment activities conditioned on low and high governance regimes. If the market correctly prices the governance environment and the expected returns to expenditures at time t, there should be no future risk-adjusted returns to either governance or expenditure information. I find that for firms with low external monitoring, and separately, for firms with high shareholder rights, lower (higher) investment activity results in positive (negative) future risk-adjusted returns. Implementing a trading strategy which holds low investment firms and shorts high investment firms results in 7.1% and 5.6% annual risk-adjusted returns when conditioned on low institutional holdings and high shareholder right, respectively. This study also provides preliminary evidence that outside blockholder and activist ownership is effective in mitigating the negative association between investment activity and future excess returns through the shareholder rights mechanism. Finally, I provide evidence that the diversification discount associated with multi-segment firms is generally invariant to investment activity levels.

Inom den utförda studien har både finansiell data och information kring ägarstruktur gällande företag på svenska OMX Stockholm Small-Cap listan använts för att undersöka ifall andelen privata småsparare har en signifikant påverkan på volatiliteten. Volatilitet har en väsentlig roll när det kommer till aktiehandel och tidigare teorier pekar på att det finns ett flertal variabler som ligger bakom volatiliteten, småägare är en av dessa variabler. Utifrån regressionsanalysen kan andelen privata småsparare påvisas ha en signifikant påverkan på volatiliteten. Det framkom även utifrån resultaten att bolagens resultat dividerat med deras totala tillgångar var ett mått som påverkade volatiliteten. Flera variabler som enligt tidigare teori bör ha verkan på volatiliteten kunde inte påvisas att överensstämma med den här uppsatsens forskning som till exempel institutionella ägares påverkan. / In the following study both financial and ownership data have been gathered regarding companies listed on the Swedish OMX Stockholm Small-cap list to determine whether the fraction of small private investors have an significant impact on volatility. The reason is because volatility has a central role within the stock market making it an important variable. Previous theories suggest that a number of different variables that affect the volatility, where small private investors are one of them. Our regression model proves that the fraction of small private investors indeed have a significant effect on volatility. Our results also suggest that the company’s earnings divided by its total assets is a variable which alters the volatility. Multiple variables which were suggested by theories to have an impact on volatility could not be proven to be true, one of these variables were institutional owners.