[pt] Os modelos clássicos da Moderna Teoria de Finanças são apoiados na racionalidade, onde o investidor utiliza a curva de utilidade para maximizar seu bem estar. No entanto, diversos estudos revelam que nem sempre o processo decisório ocorre de maneira racional, levando o investidor, muitas vezes, a decisões equivocadas. As chamadas Finanças Comportamentais surgem para contestar o pressuposto da racionalidade ilimitada. Ela incorpora a psicologia e a sociologia aos modelos clássicos com o objetivo de melhor entender o processo decisório no ambiente de finanças. Este trabalho pretende analisar alguns aspectos comportamentais e comparar a susceptibilidade de dois grupos de investidores a esses aspectos: os investidores institucionais e os investidores individuais. Para comparar e testar essa susceptibilidade, foram enviados questionários aos dois grupos de investidores. As respostas foram analisadas através de testes estatísticos. Os testes indicaram que os investidores individuais estão suscetíveis a mais vieses comportamentais do que os investidores institucionais. / [en] The classical models of the Modern Finance Theory are based on the rationality, where the investor uses the utility curve to maximize his wealth. However, many studies show that the decision process does not always occur in a rational manner, leading the investor, many times, to wrong decisions. The Behavior Finance appears to question the assumption of the unlimited rationality. It incorporates the psychology and the sociology to the classical models with the purpose of better understanding the decision process in the financial environmental. This work intends to analyze certain behavior aspects and compare the susceptibility of two groups of investors to such aspects: the institutional investors and the individual investors. To compare and test such susceptibility, questionnaires have been sent to such two groups of investors. The answers were analyzed through statistics tests. Such tests indicated that the individual investors are more susceptible to behavior tendencies then institutional investors.

A la différence d'autres catégories de personnes privées, comme par exemple celle des commerçants qui, s'ils peuvent tirer profit des règles internationales mises en place par les États relatives au libre exercice du commerce, n'ont généralement pas la capacité de se prévaloir à titre individuel des droits leur conférant ces règles dans l'ordre international, l'investisseur est devenu aujourd'hui destinataire direct d'un nombre important d'instruments conventionnels, et dispose grâce aux mécanismes de règlement des différends prévus par ces derniers d'un droit d'action individuel à l'encontre des États étrangers. Par le terme « investisseur», les conventions de protection des investissements étrangers désignent aussi bien les individus que les personnes morales. Traditionnellement, en contentieux interétatique, un État ne peut exercer sa protection diplomatique qu'en faveur de ses nationaux, à condition cependant que l'individu ne possède pas en outre la nationalité de l’État destinataire d'une telle réclamation. Le droit conventionnel des investissements a apporté une certaine évolution en la matière. D'une part, de plus en plus de traités étendent leur application non seulement aux nationaux des États contractants, mais également aux individus ayant établi leur résidence sur le territoire de ces derniers. D'autre part, certaines conventions prévoient expressément que lorsqu'un individu-investisseur dispose à la fois de la nationalité de l'un des États contractants d'un traité et de celle d'un autre État contractant, contre lequel il entend adresser une réclamation, c'est la nationalité la plus effective de la personne physique qui doit conditionner la recevabilité de sa demande au niveau international. Concernant le régime de protection des personnes morales, en contentieux de la protection diplomatique la Cour internationale de Justice accorde uniquement à l’État où est constituée la société, le titre pour agir en sa faveur à l'encontre d'un autre État. Cette règle a été très critiquée au motif que souvent l’État d'incorporation d'une société, contrôlée par des ressortissants d'un autre État, n'a pas toujours un intérêt suffisant pour défendre les droits de celle-ci vis-à-vis d'un troisième État auteur d'une mesure préjudiciable pour cette société. L’État réellement intéressé par un recours serait plutôt celui de nationalité des associés de la personne morale lésée. En tenant compte de ce dernier constat, le droit conventionnel des investissements a conféré la capacité aux associés d'une société lésée pour agir en protection des actifs de cette dernière, sans pour autant remettre en cause la qualité à agir de la société pour la protection de ces mêmes biens et avoirs. Lorsque le titulaire d'un investissement est une personne morale, celle-ci n'est alors plus perçue comme un seul investisseur, mais comme une pluralité d'investisseurs potentiels. La société peut être traitée soit comme une personne juridique unique, soit comme une addition des personnalités de tous ses associés, détenant directement ou indirectement son capital, et disposant le cas échéant de nationalités différentes, et donc de titres juridiques multiples leur permettant d'agir à l'encontre de l’État ayant porté atteinte à l'investissement réalisé par une telle personne morale. / No English summary available

Cette thèse est composée de quatre chapitres qui contribuent à une meilleure connaissance des comportements d’échange des investisseurs individuels et de leur performance. Dans le premier chapitre, nous réalisons la première étude consacrée aux performances de portefeuille des investisseurs individuels français. A partir d’une base de données de plus de 8 millions de transactions réalisées par 56 723 investisseurs, nous montrons que les investisseurs français affichent des rentabilités ajustées au risque négatives sur leurs portefeuilles et font des choix d’investissement pénalisants. De plus, nous mettons en évidence que les investisseurs les plus sophistiqués ne sont pas plus performants que leurs pairs.Dans le second chapitre, nous montrons que l’aspiration individuelle constitue un déterminant clé pour expliquer l’hétérogénéité des performances de portefeuille. Nous définissons les aspirations selon la Théorie Comportementale du Portefeuille. Les investisseurs qui ont de fortes aspirations détiennent des portefeuilles plus risqués, échangent plus fréquemment et diversifient moins que les investisseurs ayant de faibles aspirations. En contrôlant de la fréquence des échanges, de la diversification et des facteurs de risque habituels, nous montrons que les investisseurs ayant de fortes aspirations sous-performent les investisseurs ayant de faibles aspirations.Dans le troisième chapitre nous analysons les performances des investisseurs individuels via des mesures adaptées à leurs préférences. Lorsque leurs performances sont évaluées avec ces mesures plutôt qu’avec le ratio de Sharpe, une plus grande part des investisseurs bat l’indice de marché. Cette observation jette un regard nouveau sur les capacités de gestion des investisseurs individuels. Cependant, nous montrons que l’amélioration des performances est liée à la skewness des portefeuilles plutôt qu’à une sélection de titres pertinente.Dans le dernier chapitre, nous explorons les comportements de rachat des investisseurs individuels. Nous montrons que les investisseurs préfèrent racheter (1) les titres pour lesquels ils ont réalisé une plus-value lors de la vente (2) les titres dont le prix a diminué depuis la vente. Nos tests excluent les explications rationnelles et confirment que l’évitement du regret est à l’origine de tels comportements. Sur la base d’une analyse de survie, nous montrons que les investisseurs sophistiqués sont moins sujets à ces préférences. / This dissertation is composed of four chapters that make a substantial contribution to existing knowledge of the trading behavior and performance of individual investors. The first chapter provides the most extensive study of the trading performance of French individual investors to date. Based on a large database of nearly 8 million trades realized by56,723 investors, we show that French investors exhibit negative risk-adjusted returns on their portfolios, and make penalizing choices in their trades. We find that more sophisticated investors do not perform better than their peers, and we conclude that investors would gain more from applying a passive strategy. In the second chapter, we evidence that individual aspiration is a key determinant of existing heterogeneity in portfolio performance. We define aspirations according to the Behavioral Portfolio Theory. Investors who have high aspirations hold riskier portfolios, trade more frequently and diversify less than investors who have low aspirations. After controlling for turnover, diversification and usual risk factors, we find that investors with high aspirations underperform investors with low aspirations.In the third chapter we highlight alternative measures of performance that efficiently convey the real preferences of investors. When they are evaluated with these alternative measures rather than with the Sharpe ratio, a higher proportion of investors beat the market index. This observation challenges the global evidence that individual investors are poor portfolio managers. However, our evidence suggests that the improvement of an investor’s performance is linked to portfolio skewness rather than relevant stock selection.In the last chapter, we explore the repurchase behavior of individual investors. We find that French investors prefer to repurchase (1) stocks that have been sold for a gain and (2) stocks that have lost value since their sale. Our tests exclude rational explanations for these preferences and confirm our hypothesis that such patterns can be traced to the avoidance of regret in trades. We use survival analysis to demonstrate that sophisticated investors suffer less from there purchase preferences.

Indian economy and trade policy have changed a lot during last 25 years. India opened to the world, became one of the emerging markets and attracted more investors. Trade policy needed to adapt to those changes. Also Czech investors are interested in Indian market and some of them already run their business in India with the help of traditional good relationships between India and Czech Republic. This thesis describes current trade policy of India, its autonomous and contractual tools, promising sectors of the Indian economy with emphasis on opportunities for Czech exporters.

The concept of sustainable development has increased a lot in recent times and has spread throughout society. A group traditionally known for focusing on financial aspects is the investors, but because of the increased focus on sustainability from different stakeholders many of them also focus on including corporate social responsibility information in their investment decisions. Through a qualitative approach this study is meant to explore how investors, especially fund managers, implement sustainability data into their investment decisions, what motivates them to invest sustainably and how they perceive the configuration of the reports. To achieve this purpose, eleven respondents with considerable knowledge and experience of working with sustainability were interviewed. The results indicate that the respondents do use sustainability data in their investment decision and that they also use different kind of sources for obtaining this information. There are several different reasons why they work with sustainable investments including minimizing risks, profits, customer demand and personal interests. Lastly, there is a desire among the respondents for a standardized framework regarding the sustainability reports similar to the financial equivalent.

Magister Economicae - MEcon / Developing countries all over the world are competing for greater shares of foreign investment flows in a world where capital has become much more mobile. Also changes to tax policies have been implemented to make the domestic economies of host countries more attractive in the eyes of foreign investors.South Africa is an example of a capital-scarce country requiring much higher and more sustainable levels of foreign investment in order to reach the growth target as envisaged by AsgiSA. This problem is exacerbated by the current deficit on the current account of the balance of payments, together with the extremely low rate of national savings.Recent empirical findings indicate that various aspects of tax policy (nominal versus effective rates of company tax, tax incentives, accelerated depreciation allowances,etc) do affect investment decisions and that harmonisation of tax policies is important.It emphasises that tax policy is a very important aspect considered by multinational companies in their investment decisions. It therefore cannot be ignored by policy makers in capital-scarce countries.The study presents an economic appraisal of the South African situation in the context of important lessons which can be learnt from behavioural responses to international tax rules. It finds inter alia that along with other countries, such as Ireland and Singapore, South Africa implemented various changes, such as reducing the nominal and effective rates of company tax. Another example is the recent announcement of the phasing out of the secondary tax on companies. However, studies also indicate that, although not a first best solution, the use tax incentives is standard practice which cannot be ignored. Uncertainty regarding tax policy also seems to impact on the host country’s ability to attract foreign investment inflows and may even result in disinvestment. A case in point is the recent disinvestment from the South African mining sector.

Cette thèse analyse l’impact de la réglementation des divulgations environnementales ainsi que l’utilité de ces informations pour les investisseurs, partie prenante susceptible d’influencer l’entreprise en l’amenant à produire l’information environnementale utile, éventuellement imposée par la réglementation. Notre recherche s’appuie sur une approche quantitative basée sur le traitement des scores de divulgation environnementale au travers de modèles de régression ordinaire et censuré. Les scores de divulgation environnementale ont été calculés à partir d’une grille de mesure élaborée par nos soins et utilisée pour l’analyse de 121 entreprises européennes. Les résultats montrent que la réglementation des divulgations environnementales a un impact positif direct et induit sur le niveau de divulgation environnementale des entreprises. Par contre, l’impact des recommandations gouvernementales ou émanant d’organismes professionnels est identiquement faible. Les résultats montrent également que l’utilité des divulgations environnementales pour les investisseurs n’est pas uniforme : elle dépend de l’opacité des divulgations financières de l’entreprise, de son exposition aux risques environnementaux et de la structure de son actionnariat. Enfin, dans un contexte où l’information environnementale publiée est largement, voire totalement volontaire, les résultats montrent que les entreprises orientent leur communication environnementale en fonction des parties prenantes qu’elles identifient comme prioritaires. / Using disclosure scores to assess the level of environmental information provided by 121 randomly selected European listed companies, this research has two major goals. First, it examines whether environmental information is useful to investors. Second, it analyzes whether it is worth regulating environmental disclosures. Results reveal that the usefulness of environmental disclosures for investors is not uniform. It varies among firms, increasing with (i) exposure to environmental risks; (ii) ownership dispersion; (iii) the level of financial opacity. Furthermore, results also reveal that regulation has a direct and induced favorable impact on corporate environmental disclosure. After controlling for the usual determinants of environmental disclosures, we show that firms subject to a law that regulates environmental reporting disclose more than those domiciled in countries that have developed guidelines only. Finally, in a context where environmental information is mainly voluntary, we show that firms reserve their environmental communication for their preferred stakeholders.

Many governments in developing countries including Tanzania have embarked upon an ambitious effort to conclude bilateral investment treaties. Bilateral investment treaties (BITs) are currently used as a famous means for establishing the legal framework for foreign investment in the world. BITs have been entered to by Tanzania mostly to improve the foreign investment climate and hence attract more foreign investment. Foreign investors are often worried about the quality of host countries institutions and enforceability of the law in developing countries. As a result, BITs guarantee them certain standards of treatments that can be enforced through investor state dispute settlement in international tribunals. Developing countries conclude BITs and accept restrictions on their sovereignty in the hope that the protection from political and other risks lead to increase in FDI flows. BITs aspire to protect, promote and in some instances to remove obstacles to foreign investment flows without looking at their implications on sustainable development. The purpose of this research is to examine the BITs framework in Tanzania, explores the increasing persuasiveness of these agreements in promoting FDIs and their impacts upon sustainable development. Sustainable development here refers to development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The thesis tries to look at what BITs say and identifies a number of key emerging development linkages and their implications on sustainable development. The thesis demonstrates that some BITs provisions have been seen to have disturbing and potentially worrying legal and policy implications for host states. Most BITs offer an avenue for dispute settlement mechanism that permits foreign investors to take host states to international arbitrations in cases where the investor alleges that the treaty’s provisions have been violated. As will be seen in this paper, the number of treaty based arbitrations has enormously increased in recent years. One of the main findings of the research is that, BITs are not mutually beneficial agreements and are one sided in favour of capital exporting countries. They are unbalance and can hardly provide the basis for a durable investment regime though they are reciprocal in appearance. Despite the fact that they establish equal rights and duties for both sides, capital flows from one side only. Thus, it is argued in this thesis that BITs lack clarity and consistency as benefits will accrue to the capital exporting countries. The thesis further argues that Tanzania faces some challenges regarding the provisions of BITs already concluded. Foreign investors are increasingly aware of the protection available under BITs, and increasingly inclined to invoke those rights in the face of undesirable government initiatives or proposals. The dissertation concludes that BITs will harbour important consequences for Tanzania and may have significant adverse implications if not well negotiated. It further reveals that BITs are not efficient in promoting sustainable development and there is a need for investment agreement to be balanced in a development dimension. Most of the treaties compare unfavourably with the model investment agreement drafted by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), and that the latter agreement provides a more development friendly template for such agreements. For that reason, Tanzania has to review its BITs so as to ensure that they are in harmony with the country’s broader social and economic principles for sustainable development. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

Corporate governance phenomena have traditionally been, and are still, studied foremost as relationships between principals and agents. Studies of how accounting plays out in corporate governance settings rather share the interest in hierarchical influence than challenge it. The present thesis argues that when studying accounting in corporate governance settings we must, in addition to studying hierarchical influence, take into account the ‘field of governance’ in which accounting is situated. The hierarchical influence with which the corporate governance literature is concerned does not occur in an isolated setting, but in a field with pre-existing, concurrent and entering governance initiatives, technologies and actors. Such aspects of the field of governance necessarily influence how accounting is able to serve corporate governance ends. Based on two empirical cases, institutional investors and trade unions, active in a field of governance concerned with social and environmental aspects of corporate performance, this thesis consists of four studies investigating the different aspects (who, what and where) of the field of governance and the influence these aspects have on accounting in a corporate governance setting. This thesis, as a result, proposes a new way to study accounting in corporate governance settings and identifies further conditions for accounting’s constitutive ability. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Submitted. Paper 2: Submitted. Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p>

The aim of this diploma thesis is to cover the problem of usefulness of financial statements and accompanying notes in relation to the most important users and their investment decision making. First part of the thesis describes substantial principles of financial statements and notes and forms theoretic basis for subsequent practical analysis. The role of annual accounts information in the decision-making process is further determined. General usefulness of financial statements is covered together with its qualitative and quantitative aspects. In practical part of the thesis the scoring-based model is used to assess usefulness of financial statements by examining its qualitative and quantitative aspects. The final part of the thesis is intended to reveal main sections of financial statements which can be easily adjusted to mislead investors in their decision making. The thesis is focused on financial statements based on both IFRS and Czech accounting standards, where both systems are being compared.