Sammanfattning Titel: ”Lurad” av ett erbjudande – en empirisk studie om prissättning och kundens beteendemönster Nivå: Kandidatuppsats i ämnet företagsekonomi: Marknadsföring Författare: Adam Naenfeldt & Mattias Söderström Handledare: Jonas Kågström Datum: Juni 2013 Syfte: Syftet med examensarbetet var att analysera konsumenters beteende. Hjälpverktyget vid genomförandet var att använda oss av teorin, Option Framing. Delsyftet var att undersöka nuvarande prissättningsmodell inom revisions- och redovisningsbranschen. Metod: Studien innehåller två delar, en kvantitativ del och en kvalitativ del. I den kvantitativa delen var utgångspunkten tidigare forskning och med hjälp av den tidigare forskningen utformades två enkäter. Den delades ut till småföretagare i Gävleområdet. Resultatet analyserades i programmet Minitab16 och sammanställdes bland annat med en bivariat analys. Den kvalitativa delen bestod av intervjuer och sammanställdes bland annat med hjälp av NVivo10. Resultat och slutsats: Resultatet som erhölls i den kvantitativa delen av studien var likartad med tidigare forskning inom området. Utifrån Option Framing och Bivariat analysen påvisades olika samband som firmorna kan dra nytta av i arbetet att paketera tjänster. I den kvalitativa delen framkom att revisions- och redovisningsfirmorna börjat frångå den gamla konservativa timprissättningen. Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Studien behandlar Option Framing på komplexa tjänster (redovisningstjänster) och vidare forskning kan göras på extremt komplexa samt icke komplexa tjänster. Uppsatsens bidrag: Utifrån teori och empiri rekommenderar studien att se till de samband vi funnit vid paketering av tjänster. Marknadsförare inom branschen kan därmed dra nytta av resultaten i studien. Nyckelord: Prissättning, Option Framing, beteendeekonomi, revision, redovisning

American options are financial contracts that allow exercise at any time until ex- piration. While the pricing of standard American option contracts has been well researched, with a few exceptions no analytical solutions exist. Valuation of more in- volved American option contracts, which include multiple underlying assets or path- dependent payoff, is still to a high degree an uncharted area. Most numerical methods work badly for such options as their time complexity scales exponentially with the number of dimensions. In this Master’s thesis we study valuation methods based on Monte Carlo sim- ulations. Monte Carlo methods don’t suffer from exponential time complexity, but have been known to be difficult to use for American option pricing due to the forward nature of simulations and the backward nature of American option valuation. The studied methods are: Parametrization of exercise rule, Random Tree, Stochastic Mesh and Regression based method with a dual approach. These methods are evaluated and compared for the standard American put option and for the American maximum call option. Where applicable the values are compared with those from deterministic reference methods. The strengths and weaknesses of each method is discussed. The Regression based method essentially reduces the problem to one of selecting suitable basis functions. This choice is empirically evaluated for the following Amer- ican option contracts; standard put, maximum call, basket call, Asian call and Asian call on a basket. The set of basis functions considered include polynomials in the underlying assets, the payoff, the price of the corresponding European contract as well as certain analytic approximation of the latter. Results from the empirical studies show that the regression based method is the best choice when pricing exotic American options. Furthermore, using available analytical approximations for the corresponding European option values as a basis function seems to improve the performance of the method in most cases.

Although globally used in option pricing, the Black-Scholes model has not been able to reflect the evolution of stocks in the real world. A regime-switching model which allows jumps in the underlying asset prices and the parameters of the corresponding stochastic process is more accurate. We evaluate the analytical solution for pricing of European options under a two-state regime switching model. Both the convergence of the analytical solution and the feature of implied volatility are investigated through numerical examples. We develop a number of techniques for pricing American options by solving the system of partial differential equations in a general \mathcal{K}-state regime-switching model. The linear complementarity problem is replaced by either the penalty or the direct control formulations. With an implicit discretization, we compare a number of iterative procedures (full policy iteration, fixed point-policy iteration, and local American iteration) for the associated nonlinear algebraic equations. Specifically, a linear system appears in the full policy iteration which can be solved directly or iteratively. Numerical tests indicate that the fixed point-policy iteration and the full-policy iteration (using a simple iteration for the linear system), both coupled with a penalty formulation, results in an efficient method. In addition, using a direct solution method to solve the linear system appearing in the full policy iteration is usually computationally very expensive depending on the jump parameters. A Fourier transform is applied to the system of partial differential equations for pricing American options to obtain a linear system of ordinary differential equations that can be solved explicitly at each timestep. We develop the Fourier space timestepping algorithm which incorporates a timestepping scheme in the frequency domain, in which the frequency domain prices are obtained by applying the discrete Fourier transform to the spatial domain. Close to quadratic convergence in time and space is observed for all regimes when using a second order Crank-Nicolson scheme for approximation of the explicit solution of the ordinary differential equation.

Abstract Employee Stock Bonus (ESB) is a unique bonus model to link employee salary package with company performance under the current regulation in Taiwan. Comparing with Employee Stock Option (ESOP) in USA, ESB is different in accounting process, company¡¦s actual cost and the model of employee gain in spite of the principle of linking employee salary package to corporate performance is the same. Moreover, the incentive effectiveness and the impact on shareholders¡¦ value between ESB and ESOP need to be clarified. The objectives of this research are to discuss the pros and cons of ESB program as well as to analyze the implementation history and decision characterization of ESB in Taiwan. In the first part of this study, we compare the difference between ESB and ESOP in terms of their fundamentals, implementation and incentive effectiveness, as well as analyze the impact on shareholders¡¦ value by various accounting principles and valuation models approaches.¡@In the second part, we do a history study on ESB implementation history of Taiwan hi-tech industries. We point out some improper ESB decisions that hurt shareholder¡¦s value. We also propose some indexes to measure effectiveness, efficiency of ESB and degree of impact on shareholder¡¦s value. In the third part, we apply regression methodology and cross-sectional analysis to characterize the ESB decision using the samples from Taiwan listed hi-tech companies between 1998 to 2001. We conclude the following contributions in this research: 1. The fundamental of ESB is to provide employee bonus by diluting shareholder¡¦s value. During bull market or stock price appreciates after stock splits, ESB perfectly incorporates employee bonus with shareholders¡¦ value. On the other hand, ESB becomes an extra overhead for shareholders during bear market or stock price depreciates after stock splits. 2. What employees gain from ESB is paid by equity market instead of being paid by the company, no matter whichever accounting principle is adopted. Recognizing ESB as company expense will present income statement in more a proper way but will not impact book value of equity. 3. To recognize ESB as company expense will reduce ¡§intrinsic value of equity¡¨ evaluated by EBO model as EBO model is based on accounting profit. As DFC model is based on free cash flow, ¡§intrinsic value of equity¡¨ evaluated by DFC model will not change even if different accounting principles are adopted. However, ¡§intrinsic value of equity per share¡¨ will be slightly affected by the dilution of share number. 4. In the research samples, mean of ¡§the market value of ESB over average appreciation value of company¡¨ is 13%¡Astandard deviation is 53%¡Amedian is 8%, which implies the welfare effectiveness created by ESB to shareholders varies with individual company. 5. The result of empirical study supports that the main measurement index for managers to decide the share number of ESB program is ¡§total market value of ESB¡¨ instead of ¡§profit share rate¡¨ or ¡§dilution rate¡¨, regardless companies which adopted ¡§fix profit share rate for ESB¡¨ policy. 6. According to the result of empirical study, ¡§the market value of ESB ¡¨ is significantly positive- correlated to growth opportunity, merit raises rate, net profit growth rate, and significantly negative ¡V correlated to company size and financial leverage. ¡§The market value of ESB per employee¡¨ is significantly positive-correlated to company size, growth opportunity, merit raises rate, net profit growth rate, and significantly negative ¡V correlated to financial leverage. The result is consistent with hypotheses that are based on Agency Theory, Information Asymmetry Theory and Scale of Economic. The result of empirical study is not able to support the hypotheses that managers will offer employee more value of ESB according to the appreciation of company value.

Abstract Employee stock option had been discussed for long time and had become very popular topic for current corporates¡¦ financial management. The importance of its option value model becomes hot topic now. The recommended model based on FASB No. 123 may not be helpful to see its payoff distortion from risk aversion and employee exit rate factors. We choose some companies at Taiwan which use employee stock option as their financial tool and study how both risk aversion and employee exit rate impact their value with modified binomial tree method. The results show that risk aversion factor is more sensitivity and cause option payoff change its value within very narrow input range, while employee exit rate also change option value sigfincantly after 10% exit rate range. Hence. Evaluation of risk aversion and employee exit rate factors become important. Companies need to search for optimal solution of those factors to achieve optimal option valuation and its relative incentive effect in order to retain their employee.

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Nonlinear Residual Income Model Abstract Residual income has been proven to be a new approach of value relevance recently. The purpose of this study is to introduces residual income completely, and hopefully make some creativeness and contribution to residual income model. This paper is a both modeling and empirical study. In modeling, we have the following results¡G (1) Next period residual income is a nonlinear function of this period residual income, when we consider managers¡¦ real option. (2) This study introduces ¡§nonlinear residual income model¡¨ into Ohlson model, therefore firms¡¦ value is a nonlinear function of this period residual income. (3) This paper develops an option-based valuation model. According to this paper, equity value consists of the expected value from maintaining current operations, plus the value of the (put) option to discontinue operations at date t+1, and value of the (call) option to expand operations at date t+1. Empirical tests based on 27,536 firm-year observations from 1991-99 supports the above predictions of (1) and (2). In addition to the traditional OLS, this paper applies a new statistical approach--Sliced Inversed Regression (SIR). By SIR, we identify that our data has nonlinear components. This paper provides an alternative choice of valuation model and suggests that future research should approach the basic of value drivers.

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The cost of construction projects depends on their size, complexity, and duration. Construction management applies effective management techniques to the planning, design, and construction of a project from conception to completion for the purpose of controlling time, cost and quality. A real options approach in construction projects, improves strategic thinking by helping planners recognize, design and use flexible alternatives to manage dynamic uncertainty. In order to manage uncertainty using this approach, it is necessary to value the real options. Real option models assume independence of option holder and the impacts of underlying uncertainties on performance and value. The current work proposes and initially tests whether project management reduces the value of real options. The example of resource allocation is used to test this hypothesis. Based on the results, it is concluded that project management reduces the value of real options by reducing variance of the exercise signal and the difference between exercise conditions and the mean exercise signal.