Dissertation (MBus) -- AUT University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (x,133 leaves ; 30 cm.) in City Campus Theses Collection (T 331.120993 PAN)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-156). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1986.

This dissertation focuses on labour market returns of migrants and non-migrants in transitional urban China. Literature on internal migrants in urban China reveals different perspectives on whether internal migrants have higher or lower labour market returns than urban residents. Labour market segmentation theory highlights the effect of an institutional barrier, the Hukou system, and suggests that migrants are placed in the lower segment of the market while urban residents have many advantages over migrants. On the contrary, migration selectively literature suggests migrants in urban China are positively selected and have higher quality than non-migrants, thus suggesting that migrants have higher-level returns than non-migrants. Market transition theory provides a transitional view and suggests the inequality caused by the Hukou system is decreasing with the development of a market economy, with competitiveness increasing among both migrants and urban non-migrants. The main objective of this research is to examine the differences in earnings and occupational attainments among different population groups - urban non-migrants, temporary migrants and permanent migrants - and their changes over time, and to examine factors that contribute to the changes. Three key factors, Hukou reforms, development of market mechanisms and migration selectivity, are highlighted in this study. Using CGSS 2003 and 2008, the empirical analysis shows that first, the independent effect of migrant status on earnings was significant in 2003 but not significant in 2008, however, migrant status had a significant independent effect on individuals’ occupational attainments in both 2003 and 2008. Second, migration selection had significant and positive effects on individual’s earnings and occupational attainments in both 2003 and 2008. Third, migrants with urban Hukou status have an advantage in labour market returns. Urban migrants (temporary and permanent migrants from urban to urban) had a net earnings advantage over urban non-migrants in two years of 2003 and 2008; permanent migrants (permanent migrants from rural to urban and from urban to urban) had an advantage in occupational attainments over urban non-migrants in both 2003 and 2008. The mixed findings of decreased effects of migrant status on individual’s earnings from 2003 to 2008 and the remaining effect of migrant status on individual’s occupational attainment from 2003 to 2008 indicate that both segmentation and competition exist in urban labour markets in China. This reflects the nature of China’s transition from a planned to a market economy, where growing market forces co-exist with institutional legacies. Migrants in China are positively selected and migration experience contributes positive returns on earnings and occupational attainments.

Στην παρούσα εργασία γίνεται αναφορά στη πρακτική Ρύθμισης και Εποπτείας των Αγορών Χρήματος και Κεφαλαίου, στα προβλήματα που παρουσιάζουν, καθώς και σε προτάσεις βελτίωσης του σημερινού συστήματος. / In the present work we report the practice of regulation and supervision of money and capital markets, the problems they present, as well as suggestions for improving the current system.

Market power mitigation has been an integral part of wholesale electricity markets since deregulation. In wholesale electricity markets, different regions in the US take different approaches to regulating market power. While the exercise of market power has received considerable attention in the literature, the issue of market power mitigation has attracted scant attention. In the first chapter, I examine the market power mitigation rules used in New York ISO (Independent System Operator) and California ISO (CAISO) with respect to day-ahead and real-time energy markets. I test whether markups associated with New York in-city generators would be lower with an alternative approach to mitigation, the CAISO approach. Results indicate the difference in markups between these two mitigation rules is driven by the shape of residual demand curves for suppliers. Analysis of residual demand curves faced by New York in-city suppliers show similar markups under both mitigation rules when no one supplier is necessary to meet the demand (i.e., when no supplier is pivotal). However, when some supplier is crucial for the market to clear, the mitigation rule adopted by the NYISO consistently leads to higher markups than would the CAISO rule. This result suggest that market power episodes in New York is confined to periods where some supplier is pivotal. As a result, I find that applying the CAISOs' mitigation rules to the New York market could lower wholesale electricity prices by 18%. The second chapter of my dissertation focuses on supply function equilibrium. In power markets, suppliers submit offer curves in auctions, indicating their willingness to supply at different price levels. Although firms are allowed to submit different offer curves for different time periods, surprisingly many firms stick to a single offer curve for the entire day. This essentially means that firms are submitting a single offer curve for multiple demand realizations. A suitable framework to analyze such oligopolistic competition between power market suppliers is supply function equilibrium models. Using detailed bidding data, I develop equilibrium in supply functions by restricting supplier offers to a class of supply functions. By collating equilibrium supply functions corresponding to different realizations of demand, I obtain a single optimal supply function for the entire day. Then I compare the resulting supply function with actual day-ahead offers in New York. In addition to supply function equilibrium, I also develop a conservative bidding approach in which each firm assumes that rivals bid at marginal costs. Results show that the supply functions derived from equilibrium bidding model in this paper is not consistent with actual bidding in New York. This result is mainly driven by the class of supply functions used in this study to generate the equilibrium. Further, actual offers do not resemble offers generated by the conservative bidding algorithm.

The origin of market value has not been sufficiently explored in the social sciences. While there is a tendency among economists and sociologists to see value as imported to the market from external sources (e.g. culture, internal preferences), I argue that shifts in market value are often endogenous to the market setting. Perceptions of value, or collective beliefs that specific sets of assets will yield benefits for the owner, are most malleable when markets are unstable. Instability is caused by intense competition and rapid technological change, both of which upset firms' abilities to make consistent profits and retain their market position. Instability amplifies general uncertainty about the best ways to create value.Perceptions of value emerge in unstable markets as firms monitor and mimic their peers, who act as information proxies about the future value of assets. I look at acquisitions within the communications industries from 1997 to 2002 to assess this claim. I expect that firms acquire target assets in the same segments as their closest competitors and market leaders. Unstable market conditions amplify the extent to which firms use their peers to guide their acquisition choices. The collective flow of acquisitions caused by this mimicry creates perceptions of value that become reflected in concrete, standard measures of market value. Investors and other third-party observers use peer behavior as an interpretive frame for estimating value creation. They assume the collective acquisitions are social proof that value is being created and this is reflected in their investment behavior, which in turn drives up the stock prices of acquiring firms.Regression findings support these propositions; although there is weak evidence that market value gains from peer mimicry are long-term. Instead, I find that using peers to frame acquisition value tends to lead to initial overvaluation, which is subsequently corrected through a long-term value discount. I suggest that unstable market conditions tend to lead to speculative behavior and inefficient market pricing.

This thesis investigates whether or not changes in a country’s government debt could affect its domestic stock market performance. The relationship is investigated by examining three different European countries, Germany, Portugal and Sweden, on the basis of two variables; (1) quarterly government debt changes as a percentage of gross domestic product and (2) the quarterly stock market changes over the time period2000:Q2 – 2011:Q2. The evidence is presented with help of Ordinary Least Square Method and Granger Causality test for each respective country. According to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, stock market prices should fully reflect all relevant information, e.g. government debt changes, as soon as they occur, without any delay, if the market is efficient. Past information should be insignificant and therefore not affect the stock market prices in an efficient market. In the cases of Sweden and Germany, the results proved to be ambiguous and thus do not allow for either rejection or acceptance of the Efficient Market Hypothesis with respect to government debt changes. However, some support was found in the case of Germany since the government debt changes and the stock market performance were instantaneously correlated. The empirical results presented in this thesis further allowed for the assumption that Portugal was not able to efficiently capture changes in the debt levels without any delay. This indicates that the Efficient Market Hypothesis can be rejected in regards for Portugal with respect to government debt changes. Furthermore, since the Portuguese stock market performance was not able to capture efficiently changes in the government debt level, it hence could possibly mislead the direction of the economy when looking into the stock prices to determine economic conditions. Moreover, the results imply that each country faces different relationships between the variables and that the relationships possibly could depend on the economic health of a country.

Concerns on market power conferred by airport dominance and the debates of hub premiums have attracted longstanding attention from governments and academics alike. Most previous studies mainly focus on the fully deregulated markets such as the United States and Europe, what remains unknown is how such effects change when a country evolves from a tightly controlled regime to a deregulated market. This research analyses the effects of airport dominance on airline pricing power with the empirical study based on the Chinese domestic market using fixed- effect panel data models. Results from the regression analysis indicate that airport dominance is the most important source of pricing power in the gradually deregulated Chinese domestic market. Hub carriers are able to charge higher prices to premium class passengers and non-hub carriers can benefit from the “umbrella effects” of hub premiums. However, hub carriers are not able to translate their airport dominance to pricing power in the economy class market, whereas non-hub carriers even have to reduce the prices as their market shares at major airports increase. This study contributes to the literature by explicitly segmenting the market into economy and premium classes. The results have important policy implications.

In recent years, investors have become more concerned about where they invest their capital and how to spread the risk among different asset types. The interest in commercial real estates has increased as this market is seen as less volatile than the stock market. Previous research for other economies has found that the commercial real estate market and the stock market do not cointegrate. Therefore it is possible to invest in both asset classes to create diversified portfolios. This thesis examines if such cointegration relationship exist on the Swedish market. Furthermore, the thesis examines the correlation and the lead-lag relationship between the two asset classes. The observed data is quarterly between the years 1994-2013 and the indices used are OMX Stockholm, sold multi-dwelling and commercial buildings, and sold manufacturers industries. To examine if there exist any cointegration between the indices the Engle-Granger 2-step method is used and the lead-lag relationship is tested by using the Granger Causality test. The results from the different tests do not show any short- or long-term relationship between the Swedish stock market and the Swedish commercial real estate market, neither do the assets show any lead-lag relationship. This means that the portfolio risk decreases and it is therefore possible for investors to diversify their portfolios with both short- and long-term time horizons.