This thesis explores issues related to bank switching costs, in the context of the New Zealand banking market. Switching costs comprise the range of economic costs faced by customers changing bank, including monetary switching costs, the loss of the relationship with bank staff, and needing to learn new systems. An important effect of switching costs is customers become locked in to their bank, which has implications for market competition, and this raises questions about the need for a regulatory response. The study comprised a mail survey to 2983 people drawn from New Zealand electoral rolls, with a response rate of 34%. The survey instrument was a questionnaire of 70 questions in four sections: banking relationships, switching behaviour, switching costs, and demographic information. Nine categories of switching costs were used: Learning, Search, Monetary Loss, Benefit Loss, Personal Relationship, Brand Relationship, Service Disruption, Uncertainty, and Hassle. These categories are found to be appropriate. Furthermore, the three higher order categories of Procedural, Financial and Relational found by Burnham, Frels and Mahajan (2003) are confirmed. Although prior studies have recognised different switching costs, there has been limited work to understand whether they differ in their impact on attitudes and behaviour around switching. Different switching costs are found to have different effects. The study also examined whether the experience of switching matches the perception, and found switching is easier than expected. Furthermore, customers who have switched banks have different perceptions of switching costs to those who have not. Customers are different, and their attitudes and needs should therefore vary. Prior research has found differences in attitudes towards financial issues based on the family life cycle, but the relationship between switching costs and family life cycle has not been explored. This thesis finds perceptions of switching costs and switching behaviour vary significantly between life cycle groups, which appears in part to be related to associated changes in the complexity of the banking relationship. Four recommendations for regulators are generated from the results of the study. These include recommending greater acknowledgement of the existence and effect of switching costs, and investigation of bank account number portability.

This thesis explores issues related to bank switching costs, in the context of the New Zealand banking market. Switching costs comprise the range of economic costs faced by customers changing bank, including monetary switching costs, the loss of the relationship with bank staff, and needing to learn new systems. An important effect of switching costs is customers become locked in to their bank, which has implications for market competition, and this raises questions about the need for a regulatory response. The study comprised a mail survey to 2983 people drawn from New Zealand electoral rolls, with a response rate of 34%. The survey instrument was a questionnaire of 70 questions in four sections: banking relationships, switching behaviour, switching costs, and demographic information. Nine categories of switching costs were used: Learning, Search, Monetary Loss, Benefit Loss, Personal Relationship, Brand Relationship, Service Disruption, Uncertainty, and Hassle. These categories are found to be appropriate. Furthermore, the three higher order categories of Procedural, Financial and Relational found by Burnham, Frels and Mahajan (2003) are confirmed. Although prior studies have recognised different switching costs, there has been limited work to understand whether they differ in their impact on attitudes and behaviour around switching. Different switching costs are found to have different effects. The study also examined whether the experience of switching matches the perception, and found switching is easier than expected. Furthermore, customers who have switched banks have different perceptions of switching costs to those who have not. Customers are different, and their attitudes and needs should therefore vary. Prior research has found differences in attitudes towards financial issues based on the family life cycle, but the relationship between switching costs and family life cycle has not been explored. This thesis finds perceptions of switching costs and switching behaviour vary significantly between life cycle groups, which appears in part to be related to associated changes in the complexity of the banking relationship. Four recommendations for regulators are generated from the results of the study. These include recommending greater acknowledgement of the existence and effect of switching costs, and investigation of bank account number portability.

The research on natives’ attitudes regarding immigration has increased during the past decades. The overall findings question the common theory of labor market competition and that native attitudes are affected by personal economic considerations. In the same time an increased concern in the political debate has become immigration. In many countries, there is a growth and progress of political parties with a far-right orientation that disapproves and attempts to prevent immigration. We examine data on attitudes towards immigration from eight rounds of the European social survey (ESS) which covers the years between 2002-2016. We study if the attitudes in Europe towards immigration from poor non-member countries of the European Union have changed during the 21th century and examine if the massive acceleration of refugee applications during the refugee crisis in 2015 has had an impact on the attitudes towards immigration. We estimate different models to examine how different factors are associated with individuals' attitudes towards immigration. Furthermore, we test if the labor market competition model holds for the seventh round of ESS due to limitation in data. We find that natives’ attitudes have not become worse in Europe, and that the refugee crisis in 2015 has not made the attitudes worse. We find that the factors that are associated with individual attitudes towards immigration are to a large degree connected with cultural values and beliefs, and that individuals with more years of schooling are more likely to favor immigration regardless of where the immigrants come from. These findings are consistent with the growing body of empirical findings that considers that cultural values and believes are the main drivers of attitudes towards immigration, and that actual effects of immigration on income and employment are quite small. These findings put the labor market competition premise in forming immigration attitudes into question.

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This dissertation consists of two empirical essays. The first chapter titled: “Hedge Fund Activism and Dual Ownership of U.S. Multinationals”. Harford, Wang & Zhang (2017) conclude that holding high cash balances abroad to avoid US taxes causes internal capital markets and investments distortions. We posit that hedge funds target MNCs with more severe internal capital and agency problems. We demonstrate that upon acquiring dual ownership in these firms, hedge funds reduce internal capital problems and improve investment, especially innovation, efficiencies. To further reduce agency costs of foreign cash holdings, hedge funds engage dual firms in focused acquisitions. These improvements are reflected in superior performances of dual firms relative to non-dual firms. Chapter 2 titled as “Innovation Strategies & IPO Underpricing”. In this chapter, we investigate how a firms’ choice of pre-IPO innovation strategies affect IPO pricing. We differentiate the orientation of the issuing firm’s innovation portfolio in terms of exploitative orientation versus explorative orientation based on citations of patents across technology classes. We introduce a measure of innovation power to generate breakthrough innovations. We show that the issuing firms with greater innovation power, especially firms with exploratory orientation of a patent, significantly decrease underpricing and have the power to bargain a higher offer price. Our results suggest that a higher exploration strategy requires more time to negotiate a higher offer price while more valuable innovation requires less time to bargain at the higher offer price.

本文引援Peretto(1998b)的研發模型，假設人口數固定的情況下，進一步延伸設定知識外溢性分別處於研發、生產技術，探討不同技術設定對於經濟成長率及廠商家數的影響，亦即經濟成長率及市場競爭程度間的關連性。 在本文的模型內，可同時決定經濟成長率與廠商家數。模型顯示：（1）當生產與研發技術皆具有外溢性時，其對應的經濟成長率高於其他情況，而廠商家數與只有研發技術具外溢性時相同，（2）生產或研發分別具有外溢性時，經濟成長率與廠商家數相對於其他情況而言，皆須視外生參數而定，（3）生產與研發技術皆不具外溢性時，其對應的經濟成長率低於其他情況，而廠商家數則與只有生產技術具外溢性時相同。 就單一產業而言，外生參數變動導致廠商家數與經濟成長之間具有抵換關係，亦即市場競爭程度與成長率間具抵換關係。若從跨產業的角度來分析，當經濟體系內存在許多不同技術型態的產業時，其經濟成長背後的動力亦會隨著技術型態的相對比重而有所影響。

Chapter I - Derivative Market Competition: OTC Markets Versus Organized Derivative Exchanges  Recent regulatory initiatives in the United States have again raised the issue of a ''level regulatory and supervisory playing field'' and the degree of competition globally between over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives and organized derivative exchange (ODE) markets. This chapter models some important aspects of how an ODE market interrelates with the OTC markets. It analyzes various ways in which an ODE market can respond to competition from the OTC markets and considers whether ODE markets would actually benefit from a more level playing field. Among other factors, such as different transaction costs, different abilities to mitigate credit risk play a significant role in determining the degree of competition between the two types of markets. This implies that a potentially important service ODE markets can provide OTC market participants is to extend clearing services to them. Such services would allow the OTC markets to focus more on providing less competitive contracts/innovations and instead customize their contracts to specific investors’ risk preferences and needs.  Chapter II – Crisis Resolution and Private Sector Adaptation Efforts at crisis resolution that succeed in reducing potential inefficiencies and instability in the international financial system are in the interest of both the private and the public sector. Unlike in the domestic context, in the international context, in the absence of clearly established rules of the game, the approaches adopted toward crisis resolution, and the extent to which they are interpreted by market participants as setting a precedent, can have profound implications for the nature and structure of international capital flows. The key conclusion of this chapter is that recent experiences with payment suspensions and bond restructurings are limited as guides to determining the future success or failures of these initiatives, as the private sector most likely has adapted in order to minimize any unwanted public sector involvement. Chapter III - European Equity Market Integration: Cyclical or Structural? Reviewing the empirical evidence of equity market integration in the European Union, the chapter finds a significant increase in the importance of global sector factors for a number of industries. Unlike most past studies, which only covered developments during the bull market of the late nineties, the results presented in this chapter suggest that the degree of Euroland equity market integration has declined gradually following the bursting of the TMT bubble. This seems to suggest that the findings of previous studies that Euroland equity markets were nearly fully financially integrated is worth revisiting. There are, however, several good reasons to believe that the structural factors driving European equity market integration have yet to play themselves out fully. Institutional investors both outside the Euroland area and within have substantial untapped capacity to take on Euroland exposures and invest additionally in Euroland equities. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2004

我國在2002年正式成為WTO 之成員，為開放保險市場與國際金融保險市場接軌，同年我國開始實施三階段的產險市場費率自由化。 然而，費率自由化實施，市場競爭更甚以往，時有所聞產險業者的惡性價格競爭與保險經紀人影響商業保險市場價格。 而本文以「台灣產險市場費率自由化下之市場競爭研究」為題，試圖瞭解我國產險公司在市場激烈競爭下卻未如國外市場(例如日本)大規模進行同業合併以降低營運成本，壯大經營規模以增加競爭力的原因，並分析保險經紀人如何影響市場價格造成市場競爭加劇的原因與實務上保險經紀人對商業保險安排承保能量架構的費率操作說明；最後就現行相關監理法條之可行改進方案做一建議與結論，希望對國內產險業有所助益。 / In 2002, Taiwan became a member of the World Trade Organization. In keeping with the spirit of this organization the government has devoted itself to building an open financial and insurance market which implemented deregulation of non-life insurance rates by three phases in the same year. Under deregulation, the rates reduction of Non-life insurance creates more competition within the industry; we often hear that non-life insurers do destructive competition and non-life insurance brokers influence commercial insurance market price deeply. The title of this paper “A study of under deregulation, market competition of Taiwan non-life insurance” is aimed to understand the reason why under deregulation, there is no series of mergers or alliances among Taiwan non-life insurance industry for reducing cost, enlarging scale to enhance competitiveness like those taking place overseas such as Japan. This thesis also analyzed how non-life insurance brokers use influence on market premium rates which caused market competition even severely and illustrated non-life insurance brokers using capacities to control commercial property insurance rates by practice experiences. Lastly, conclusive remarks and recommendations are made to the related regulation. Hopefully these suggestions would be helpful to the industry.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T13:42:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ricardo Furieri Batianello.pdf: 1553909 bytes, checksum: 307230d5431d6833c34cb63af8c84ab9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-09-11 / Esta dissertação analisa a qualidade da informação contábil (QIC) na interação entre a governança corporativa e a competição, visando responder lacunas ainda não preenchidas pela literatura, principalmente na comparação entre os quatro ambientes resultantes da interação entre competição e governança das firmas. No que tange relação competição/governança, estudos como o de Karuna (2010), por exemplo, apontaram existir uma relação entre a intensidade da competição e uma governança mais forte. Em relação à contabilidade/competição, Dhaliwal et al. (2008), descobriram haver associação positiva entre a intensidade da competição e o conservadorismo condicional, que é considerada uma das propriedades da informação contábil. Por conseguinte, no que diz respeito à relação governança/contabilidade, achados de Bushman et al. (2000), por exemplo, confirmam que a contabilidade influencia a governança corporativa. Ball et al. (2000) contradizem-nos afirmando que a governança corporativa impacta a contabilidade, ou seja, os mecanismos de governança presentes em um ambiente teriam papel fundamental na qualidade da informação contábil. A competição do mercado de produtos foi calculada mediante o Índice de Herfindahl. A divisão entre firmas com mecanismos de governança fortes e fracos foi feita com base na listagem da BM&FBovespa, onde considerou-se empresas listadas nos níveis Novo Mercado e Nível 2 como empresas com governança forte, e o restante como empresas com governança fraca. Foram utilizados dados entre os anos de 2000 e 2011, das firmas listadas da Bolsa de Valores de São Paulo. A técnica de análise estatística utilizada foi a regressão múltipla com dados em painel desbalanceado. Os resultados, no geral, corroboraram com estudos anteriores, de que tanto a presença de uma governança forte quanto um ambiente altamente competitivo podem incrementar os números contábeis de forma a torná-los mais qualitativos. Curiosamente, os resultados sugeriram que em ambientes classificados como não competitivos e com mecanismos de governança fracos, a qualidade da informação contábil divulgada mostrou-se relativamente alta, segundo duas das três propriedades da qualidade da informação contábil analisadas / This dissertation analyzes the quality of accounting information (QAI) on the interaction between corporate governance and competition, aiming to tackle questions that have not been addressed by the literature available so far, especially when it comes to comparing the four possible environments resulting of the combination between different competition and governance environments. When it comes to the relationship between competition and governance, studies such as Karuna s (2010) point out to the existence of a cause/effect relationship between the intensity of the competition and stronger governance. When discussing accounting and competition, Dhaliwal et al. (2008) evidenced a positive relation between the amount of competition and the conditional conservatism, which is considered one of the main priorities of accounting information. Thus, in what concerns the relationship between governance and accounting, findings made by Bushman et al (2000) confirm that accountancy has an influence on corporate governance. Ball et al (2000) are contrary to that opinion, claiming that it is corporate governance that impacts on accountancy, which means that the governance mechanisms present at a certain environment would play a fundamental role in the quality of accounting information. The product market competition was calculated using the Herfindahl Index and the identification of firms with strong or weak governance was based on BM&FBovespa listings, where firms listed in New Market or Level 2 were considered with strong governance, and the others were considered with weak governance. The data used was collected between 2000 and 2011, from the firms listed on the São Paulo Stock Exchange. The type of statistical analysis used to process data was the multiple regression with unbalanced panel data. In general, the results point to the same direction as previous ones, showing that both the presence of a strong governance and a highly competitive environment can enhance the accounting numbers in order to make them more qualitative. Interestingly, results suggest that in environments classified as uncompetitive and weak governance mechanisms, the quality of accounting information disclosed was relatively high, according to two of the three properties of the quality of accounting information analyzed

Le développement des contenus vidéo en ligne ont changé l’environnement de l’internet et des médias jusqu’à devenir une partie de notre vie quotidienne. Cependant, le développement de cette industrie est contraint par plusieurs problèmes, tels que la faible valeur de la publicité, le manque de rentabilité et les litiges de droit d’auteur. Des recherches scientifiques sont à mener se concentrant sur les modes de revenu des plateformes de diffusion et le fonctionnement du marché.Ma thèse mène dans un premier temps une description détaillée de marché des contenus vidéo en ligne en Chine. J’analyse les caractéristiques du marché à l’aide de la théorie des marchés bifaces. Puis la thèse examine les modes de tarification, construit un modèle de marchés bifaces différenciée verticalement, et explore la stratégie de prix optimal dans les différents modes et le choix optimal du mode de fixation des prix. Ensuite, je construis un modèle de concurrence avec la différenciation horizontale avec différents choix d’accès des annonceurs. La thèse explore de manière centrale les modes de transaction et les comportements des entreprises entre les fournisseurs de contenu et la plateforme ainsi que l’équilibre du marché.La thèse procède à une description détaillée du mécanisme de revenus et le fonctionnement de l’industrie des contenus vidéo en ligne basé sur la théorie des marchés bifaces et les caractéristiques de cette industrie émergente. Selon les résultats de la modélisation mathématique, l’analyse conclut par des suggestions à destination des plateformes et de cette industrie adaptées aux caractéristiques chinoises. / The appearance and following flourish of online video content have changed the Internet environment and media ecology of information era, which even become part of our life every day. However, the development of online video content industry is persecuted by several problems, such as lower advertising value, lack of profitability and constant copyright disputes. Specific research on the revenue modes of online video content platform and the operating mechanism of online video content market is essential.I conduct a detailed description for present China’s online video content market at first and then analyze the market characteristics using two-sided market theory. Next the thesis examines the exiting price modes, constructs a model of two-sided vertically differentiated markets, and explore the optimal pricing strategy under the different modes and the optimal choice of pricing mode. Then the thesis constructs a horizontal differentiated model of market competition under the different accessing choices of advertisers. The thesis intensively explores the transaction mode and business behavior between content providers and content platform on the accessing ways and market equilibrium.The dissertation conducts a detailed description of the revenue and operation mechanism for online video content industry based on the theory of two-sided markets and the characteristics of this emerging fresh industry. According to the analysis results concluded by the mathematical modeling, corresponding policy suggestions confirming to the online video content market with Chinese characteristics would be proposed from the perspectives of platform operation and whole industry.