The dissertation consists of two essays. The first essay investigates the ability of prior returns, relative to some aggregate market returns, to predict future returns on industry style portfolios. By pooling time series of returns across industries for the period between July 1969 and June 2012, we find that prior returns differential predicts one month ahead returns negatively, even in the presence of a set of popular state variables. The predictability remains significant and negative for up to 5 month ahead returns. The predictability is shown to be robust to alternative specifications, estimation methodology and industry classifications. A possible explanation of this finding is based on time–varying (dynamic) loss aversion among investors. More specifically, when combined with house money effects, prior performance has inverse relationship with degree of loss aversion leading to predictability in the next period returns. The second essay examines the nature of time variation in the risk exposure of country mutual funds to the US market movement and to the benchmark foreign market movement. It uses weekly data on 15 closed end funds and 19 exchange traded funds for the sample period between January, 2001 and December, 2012. Conditional factor models are employed to uncover the time variation in the estimated betas through short horizon regressions. The findings of the paper indicate considerable time variation in risk exposure of country mutual funds to the US market and foreign market risk factors. Additional investigation reveals the following observations. First, the US market betas suffer greater variation over the sample period than the target foreign market betas. Second, the overall fluctuation in betas for the closed end funds is found to be higher than that for the exchange traded funds. Third, emerging market funds experience more oscillation in the risk exposure than their developed market counterparts. It is found that a combination of the US macroeconomic state variables and investors’ sentiment can predict future betas significantly. The findings of the paper have important implication for US investors seeking diversification benefits from country mutual funds.

在單一價格法則之下，國際ETF的市場價格應該與NAV或標的資產價格一致。由於ETF具備申購贖回機制，其溢價現象將較國家型封閉型基金來得低。本文以32檔國際iShares檢視國際ETF的績效與國際投資分散效果，資料期間為1996年至2006年10月20日之日資料，並在考量區域因素的影響之下，將樣本區分為全球型、已開發市場型、以及新興市場型ETF。 本實證結果顯示，如同國家型封閉基金常出現的溢折價現象，國際iShares存在價格差異現象，尤其於新興市場型iShares更為明顯而且波動較大。然而，此價格差異現象僅是暫時的，而且主要由本國資訊所影響。此外，價格均衡的調整時間與3天期的結算清算時間一致。因此，ETF的申購贖回機制有助於提升價格調整的效率性，亦即長期而言，iShares遵循單一價格法則，而且於美國市場交易的投資人可由該投資工具達到國際投資組合分散效果，尤以全球型或複合型的iShares為最。 / In the law of one price, the share price of international ETFs should be the same as the domestic stock price and NAV respectively. Especially, with specific mechanism of creation and redemption process for ETFs, price deviation would be mitigated effectively comparing with similar product of closed-end country funds. This paper examines international ETFs’ performance and international diversification effect through 32 international iShares which are the most popular international ETFs in the world, and we use daily data with sample period from inception to 2006/10/20. Consider the regional impact on the price deviation, we also categorize the sample to three types as global, developed, and emerging market ETFs. In this paper, price deviations exist and are larger and more volatile for emerging market iShares, which is consistent with previous studies. However, the price deviations occur temporarily and are primarily driven by domestic information for all types of international iShares. We also find that the time of equilibrium adjusting process is consistent with three-day settlement period. Though incompletely perfect, the existence of the creation or redemption process along with the high transparency of iShares management appears to enhance price efficiency. Therefore, in the long-run, iShares price follow the law of one price, and US investors may obtain international diversification benefits through the instrument. Especially, the benefits will be larger for global or hybrid iShares comparing with country-specific iShares or emerging market iShares.

This paper gives an estimation of efficient frontiers for investment portfolios, they include stocks from Lima Stock Exchange General Index, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Gold, Cooper, Fixed Income Instruments of Peruvian government and savings in Peruvian financial institutions. The paper concludes that risk of investment in local portfolio reduces as a consequence of diversification, gold is an important asset and contributes to reduce portfolio risk. / El presente trabajo estima la frontera eficiente, en portafolios de inversión diversificados en acciones que componen el Índice General de la Bolsa de Valores de Lima (IGBVL), acciones que componen el Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), oro, cobre, instrumentos de renta fija del Gobierno peruano e instrumentos de ahorro bancario. Se concluye que el riesgo de portafolios de inversión de acciones que componen el IGVBL disminuye como consecuencia de la diversificación; un activo relevante es el oro que contribuye a disminuir significativamente el riesgo del portafolio.

This thesis aims to investigate the benefits of international diversification from a Swedish perspective. It presents a comparative study of the performance of different portfolios based on their degree of international diversification with a focus on Swedish investors frame of reference. Such a study is motivated by the contradictory literature about portfolio diversification and information portfolio theory that advocate for a more concentrated portfolio. It focuses solely on comparing portfolios constituted with major indices of a representative sample including countries from different parts of the world. The different scales of those portfolios start from a divided part of the Swedish economy to end with a global portfolio. We observed that international diversification can outperform the domestic portfolios when considering risk and return. In addition, we observed that the best performing portfolios over the periods are systematically concentrated on emerging countries and that the high return of those emerging countries is often not associated with a correspondingly high standard deviation as it should be expected. The best levers of performance that we identified as a result of this comparative study are, first, the strategy consisting in focusing on the most concentrated portfolios in order to maximize the return and then trying to time the market, thanks to a specialized information collection strategy, but this bear a high undiversifiable risk. Or second, adopting an intentionally diversified portfolio and collecting information about the most promising emerging markets that will be then over weighted in the portfolio to lower the risk and higher the return. Lastly, the study recommend that home-biased investors should change their behavior and consider international investments when building a portfolio.

隨著國內投資環境的惡化、大陸實施經濟改革、以及政府大陸政策的開放 ，中國大陸已經成為廠商海外投資的主要地點。國內上市公司赴大陸投資 至今已三年多，投資的家數有不斷增加的現象，對上市公司而言，大陸投 資似乎已經是一個無法避免的趨勢。在國外，有關海外投資對股東財富的 影響已經不少，而國內則因為大陸投資尚在初期階段，所以目前仍無相關 的論文針對大陸投資對股東財富的影響進行研究，很自然的，將造成公司 管理當局、投資者、以及政府有關單位在決策時缺乏這方面的實證研究可 供參考，所以本研究是以這個角度來探討大陸投資對股東財富產生何種影 響，並且分析投資金額、投資型態、進入時機、經營績效、以及海外投資 經驗等五個變數對財富效果的影響。本研究以事件研究法(event study) 進行實證，實證結果發現，無論以平均異常報酬率、累積平均異常報酬率 、或符號檢定法進行統計檢定分析，結果皆顯示上市公司大陸投資的消息 經宣告以後，該公司股東所得到的是負的異常報酬，這表示公司管理當局 在進行大陸投資的決策時，很顯然的，並非站在增加股東財富的立場去考 慮，此結果與國外的研究恰好相反。在上述的五個變數中，經複迴歸分析 發現，投資金額、進入時機、以及海外投資經驗與財富效果有反向的關係 ，而投資型態則沒有很顯著的影響，不過在採用合資方式進入時，投資者 較偏好低的控股比率，最後，在經營績效方面，此變數與財富效果有顯著 的正向關係，此結果並不支持政府的開放原則，也就是從財務管理的角度 來看，經營績效愈好的公司愈適合到大陸投資。

This thesis is composed of three chapters. The first two chapters provides novel approaches for<p>modeling and estimating the dependence structure for a large portfolio of assets using rating data.<p>In both chapters a natural form of organizing a portfolio in terms of the levels of exposure to economic sectors and geographical regions, plays a key role in setting up the dependence structure.<p>The last chapter investigates weather financial strategies that exploit sector or geographical heterogeneity in the asset space are relevant in terms of portfolio optimization. This is also done in a context of a large portfolio but with data on stock returns. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

La crise financière de 2008 a mis en exergue l'instabilité financière des banques en identifiant le caractère procyclique du levier bancaire, la sous-capitalisation des banques, et la nécessité de définir une nouvelle régulation bancaire. La dimension internationale des activités bancaires et l'identification des banques globales complètent ce constat. Les banques européennes, par leurs expositions aux marchés financiers américains, sont diversifiées internationalement: une part de leurs actifs et de leurs dettes est libellée en dollar américain. Le taux de change flottant entre le dollar et l'euro introduit un effet de valorisation et un risque de change qui impactent la stabilité bancaire. Cette thèse étudie l'impact de la diversification internationale des bilans bancaires sur la procyclicité du levier, sur la structure du capital, et sur la volatilité de capital. Quatre chapitres combinent des travaux théoriques et empiriques. Le premier chapitre analyse l'impact théorique de la diversification sur la procyclicité du levier. Le chapitre 2 utilise des données bancaires françaises entre 1999 et 2015 et montre un impact positif. Dans le chapitre 3, les mêmes données sont utilisées afin d'estimer l'impact de la diversification sur la structure du capital. L'introduction de cette dimension est déterminante dans le cadre de cette analyse. Enfin, le chapitre 4 élargit la problématique en reliant l'intégration internationale, la diversification et la volatilité du capital. Nous identifions les différentes sources de risque et nous montrons que la banque peut bénéficier d'un régime de change flottant et d'une diversification internationale. / The 2008 financial crisis has rekindled discussions on the financial stability of banks by identifying the procyclical behavior of banking leverage, the lack of capital in banks' balance sheet and the necessity of introducing a new regulatory framework. It has also highlighted the international dimension of banking activities and the identification of global banks. The significant exposure to the US financial markets leads to an international diversification of European global banks where part of their assets and liabilities are denominated in US dollar. The floating exchange rate regime between the US dollar and the euro then implies a foreign exchange risk and a valuation effect that would affect banking stability. The purpose of thesis is to study the impact of international diversification of bank’s balance sheet on leverage procyclicality, capital structure and equity volatility. I develop four chapters combining theoretical and empirical research. The first chapter analyses the theoretical impact of currency diversification on leverage procyclicality. Chapter 2 uses innovative data on banks located in France from 1999 to 2015 and shows that the relationship is positive. In the third chapter, we use our data to estimate the impact of international diversification on capital structure and we show that introducing this new dimension is determinant to the capital structure. Finally, chapter 4 enlarges the analysis to international integration, diversification and equity volatility. I identify all risk channels a bank supports and show that banks can benefit from both floating foreign exchange regime and international diversification.

In this thesis the relationship between regional composition and risk-adjusted performance is evaluated concerning Swedish issued green mutual equity funds. By using three different indices; Sharpe, Jensen and Treynor, a relationship has been able to establish. The study finds no strong relationship between geographic composition and performance concerning any of the indices and thus the impact of diversifying one's portfolio has little impact. By using the Modern Portfolio Theory, Stewardship Theory, Home Bias Theory and Behavioral Finance Theory a theoretical discussion has been established in order to further examine and analyze the fundamental dynamics of this relationship. Lastly, model risk and other variables impact on performance has been investigated. Our study finds a potential model risk since our three indices results disparate. Further, ESG related factors and Morningstar ratings seem to impact performance greater than regional composition.