Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:30:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luis Elesbao de Oliveira Neto.pdf: 882668 bytes, checksum: 8fd9f6c5b6a38e2901e75be4072b5e59 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-04-05 / Fundo Mackenzie de Pesquisa / This quantitative research aims to investigate the impact of strategic investment decisions on firm value creation, when taken by optimistic and overconfident managers. The research was conducted under the irrational managers approach (BAKER et al., 2005) and used a sample consisting of 502 strategic investment announcements made by 131 managers from 116 different Brazilian publicly traded companies, from January/2005 to December/2009. Strategic investments are considered as being all capital expenditures which create growth opportunities for companies (KESTER, 1984). The empirical results suggest that investors react negatively to announcements of strategic investments when made by optimistic and overconfident managers, pointing that differences in style, opinion and perception of reality motivated by personal managers characteristics are perceived by the market and thus discounted from companies stock price. Unlike the models prescribed by Gervais et al. (2003) and Hackbarth (2004), which predict that moderate levels of optimism and overconfidence exhibited by managers are beneficial for firm s shareholders, only partial support was found to the hypothesis that the magnitude or degree of manager s optimism/overconfidence is relevant. The results suggest that managers who exhibit a moderate degree of optimism and overconfidence are better perceived by investors than others considered markedly biased. However, the results do not confirm the existence of a degree or level for optimism/overconfidence that is beneficial to the firm and also superior to others. Managers regarded as rational and less biased were those who had their strategic investment announcements best assessed by the market. / Esta pesquisa, de natureza quantitativa, buscou investigar o impacto das decisões de investimentos estratégicos na criação de valor para as empresas, quando tomadas por gestores otimistas e excessivamente confiantes. A pesquisa, conduzida dentro da abordagem dos gestores irracionais (BAKER et al., 2005), utilizou uma amostra formada por 502 anúncios de investimentos estratégicos, realizados por 131 gestores de 116 diferentes empresas brasileiras de capital aberto, no período compreendido entre janeiro/2005 e dezembro/2009. São considerados investimentos estratégicos todos aqueles dispêndios de capital que criam oportunidade de crescimento para as empresas (KESTER, 1984). Os resultados da pesquisa empírica sugerem que os investidores reagem negativamente aos anúncios de investimentos estratégicos quando realizados por gestores otimistas e excessivamente confiantes, indicando que as diferenças de estilo, opinião e de percepção da realidade motivadas por características pessoais dos gestores são consideradas pelo mercado e descontadas do preço das ações das empresas. Ao contrário dos modelos prescritos por Gervais et al. (2003) e Hackbarth (2004),os quais predizem que a presença de um nível moderado desses vieses nos gestores é benéfica aos acionistas das empresas, encontrou-se suporte apenas parcial à hipótese de que a intensidade ou grau de enviesamento do gestor é relevante. Os resultados da pesquisa sugerem que os gestores que exibem grau moderado de otimismo e confiança excessiva são melhor percebidos pelos investidores do que outros considerados pronunciadamente enviesados.Entretanto, os resultados não confirmam a existência de um grau de intensidade para otimismo/confiança excessiva que seja benéfico à empresa e, ainda, superior aos demais.Gestores tidos como racionais e menos enviesados foram os que tiveram seus anúncios de investimentos estratégicos melhor percebidos pelo mercado

本研究探討過度自信經理人於經濟衰退階段時之併購行為。本研究蒐集S&P1500大企業於1993年至2016年的資料，對過度自信經理人於景氣衰退階段的併購機率、宣告效果、長期股價表現進行分析。因為過度自信經理人低估景氣衰退所造成的高度不確定性，同時高估本身能夠透過併購所創造的公司價值，我們預期過度自信經理人相較非過度自信經理人更容易在景氣衰退的階段進行併購。然而實證結果過顯示過度自信經理人的併購機率於2008年金融海嘯後大幅下降，減少併購的幅度顯著高於非過度自信經理人。此結果和過去文獻一致，說明在財務資源不足的情況下，過度自信經理人會比非過度自信經理人更不願意投資。因為過度自信經理人高估自家公司權益價值，認為資本市場低估其權益價值，就算面對能為公司創造價值的投資案時也不願意向外發行股票籌資，因而導致他們在經氣衰退時較非過度自信經理人投資更保守。 / The study examines the behaviors of overconfident CEOs during recessions using firms included in S&P 1500 Index from 1993 to 2016. We propose that overconfident CEOs would undertake more M&As than non-overconfident CEOs during recessions for their biased beliefs lead them to underestimating the risk they would incur in recessions and overestimating the synergy they can create through M&As. However, we found that, during and after the 2008 Recessions, overconfident CEOs reduce significantly more in undertaking M&As than non-overconfident CEOs. The results are consistent with past literatures and suggest that decrease in financial resources caused by recession lead overconfident CEOs, who overestimate the value of their own equity and are unwilling to issue new equity, to reducing more in undertaking M&As than non-overconfident CEOs after and during recession.

This thesis merges the fields of Heterogeneous Agent Models (HAMs) and Be- havioural Finance in order to bridge the main deficiencies of both approaches and to examine whether they can complement one another. Our approach suggests an alternative tool for examining HAM price dynamics and brings an original way of dealing with problematic empirical validation. First, we present the original model and discuss various extensions and attempts at empirical estimation. Next, we develop a unique benchmark dataset, covering five par- ticularly turbulent U.S. stock market periods, and reveal an interesting pattern in this data. The main body applies a numerical analysis of the HAM extended with the selected Behavioural Finance findings: herding, overconfidence, and market sentiment. Using Wolfram Mathematica we perform Monte Carlo sim- ulations of a developed algorithm. We show that the selected findings can be well modelled via the HAM and that they extend the original HAM consider- ably. Various HAM modifications lead to significantly different results and HAM is also able to partially replicate price behaviour during turbulent stock market periods. Bibliographic Record Kukačka, J. (2011): Behavioural Breaks in the Heterogeneous Agent Model. Master thesis, Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences,...

Cultural Finance är ett relativt nytt forskningsområde som belyser att kultur kan vara en nyckelfaktor till att förklara individers investeringsbeteende. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om kultur kan vara en förklarande faktor till individers investeringsbeteende.  En jämförandestudie genomfördes där svenska (n=124) och spanska (n=109) investerare undersöktes. Studien baserades på kvantitativa enkäter som publicerades i forum med inriktning på investeringar. Resultatet analyserades med hjälp av ett Mann Whitney U test i SPSS version 1.0.0.1275 för att testa om det går att urskilja skillnader i investeringsbeteende mellan Sverige och Spanien. Resultatet visade på att det gick att urskilja skillnader i investeringsbeteende i risktagande och individers motvilja att förlora pengar och att dessa skillnader kan bero på kultur. / Cultural Finance is a relatively new research area that highlights that culture can be a critical factor in explaining the investment behavior of individuals. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether culture can be an explanatory factor for individuals' investment behavior. A comparative study was conducted in which Swedish (n = 124) and Spanish (n = 109) investors were surveyed. The study was based on quantitative questionnaires published in forums focusing on investments. The results were analyzed using a Mann Whitney U test in SPSS version 1.0.0.1275 to test whether differences in investment behavior between Sweden and Spain can be discerned. The results showed that it was possible to discern differences in investment behavior in risk-taking and individuals' reluctance to lose money and that these differences may be due to culture.

Bakgrund: Informationssäkerhet är någonting som företag inom alla branscher bör ägna sig åt eftersom samtliga organisationer är utsatta för informationsrisker. Avsikten med informationssäkerhet är att skydda information så att den finns tillgänglig vid behov, är tillförlitlig och för att säkerställa att endast behöriga har åtkomst (Informationssäkerhet, 2015). Bristande informationshantering kan exempelvis resultera i dataförluster och läckt kunddata vilket i sin tur kan leda till försämrat kundförtroende och stora intäktsförluster. Företags utsatthet för informationsrisker påverkas både av interna och externa faktorer. Utbrottet av Covid-19 är ett exempel på en extern faktor (Humla, 2020). Enligt en rapport är svensk tillverkningsindustris hantering av informationsrisker kraftigt eftersatt i förhållande till övriga sektorers hantering av informationsrisker (Radar Ecosystems Specialists, 2017). Syfte: Denna uppsats undersöker hur ett företag inom svensk tillverkningsindustri arbetar med informationssäkerhet (eng. information security risk management, ISRM). Vidare applicerar vi en teoretisk lins i form av prospektteorin för att förklara informationssäkerhetsarbetet. Vi undersöker även om beslutfattare inom IT-säkerhet uppvisar tendens till övermod och huruvida detta kan påverka företagets arbete med informationssäkerhet. Metod: Uppsatsen är en kvalitativ fallstudie och det empiriska materialet har inhämtats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med beslutfattare och utvecklare som arbetar medinformationssäkerhet. Fallföretaget är ett anonymiserat svenskt tillverkningsföretag som tillhandahåller produkter och tjänster inom säkerhetsbranschen. Resultat: Enligt vår studie utgår beslutfattare från tidigare erfarenheter av informationssäkerhet när hanteringsstrategier utformas. Det framkommer även att beslutfattarens resonemang och riskhantering förändras i takt med personens erfarenhet. Vi kan även konstatera att beslutfattarens agerande kan förklaras utifrån prospektteorin och att hanteringen påverkas av kognitiva aspekter såsom övermod. / Background: Every organization needs to manage its information security risks (ISRM) as all industries are exposed to information risks. The purpose of ISRM is to protect information so that it is accessible when needed, reliable and to ensure only authorized access (Informationssäkerhet, 2015). Lack of ISRM may result in data loss or personal data leaks, which in turn may lead to a decrease of consumer confidence and reduced revenue streams. Enterprises exposure to information risks are affected by both internal and external factors. The outbreak of Covid-19 is an example of an external factor (Humla, 2020). According to a report, the Swedish manufacturing industry's management of information risks is severely neglected in relation to other sectors ́ handling of information risks (Radar Ecosystems Specialists, 2017). Purpose: This thesis explores how a Swedish manufacturing company manages its information security risks. This is explored by applying a theoretical framework of Prospect Theory to explain decision makers ́ reasoning behind its current ISRM practices. We are also exploring whether decision makers within IT-security have a tendency towards Overconfidence bias and whether it may affect the company's ISRM. Method: The thesis is a qualitative case study and the empirical data has been obtained through semi structured interviews with decision-makers and developers working with information security. The case company is an anonymous Swedish manufacturing company that provides products and services in the security industry. Results: According to our thesis, decision makers rely on previous information security experiences when designing management strategies. It also appears that the decision maker's reasoning and risk management change as the person's experience. We can also note that the decision maker's behavior can be explained on the basis of Prospect Theory and that the ISRM is influenced by cognitive aspects such as overconfidence.

The extensive literature on financial literacy has sought to explain financial behaviours and decisions. On the asset side of the balance sheet, financial literacy is associated with good financial practice and wealth accumulation. On the liability side, however, the contribution of financial literacy to individuals’ financial decisions is not entirely clear. To add to this literature, as well as that of behavioural finance and alternative financial services, this research develops a conceptual framework based on Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behaviour (TPB). This framework links individuals’ attitudes to financial matters, subjective norms, perceived feasibility, financial knowledge, and behavioural biases that include overconfidence and present bias on the decision to obtain high-interest loans. The empirical tests of the developed framework suggest that individuals in distinct socio-economic groups have different antecedents that lead to borrowing from alternative financial services. For instance, individuals from low-income households are more likely to obtain these loans if they: do not have access to other forms of credit; struggle to pay their bills; are unemployed; or do not have access to advice from finance professionals. In turn, individuals from high-income households are more likely to obtain these loans if they lack financial knowledge or have behavioural biases like overconfidence or present bias. These results suggest the importance of access to professional advice while ensuring access to traditional means of obtaining credit for low-income individuals in order to reduce the negative effects of these high-interest loans. The results also confirm the importance of current policy initiatives to implement basic finance education in public school curriculums, and the urgency to seek effective approaches to address individuals’ cognitive assumptions.

The global pandemic of Covid-19 led to a crisis of not only fatal impact but financially. The stock market experienced one of its biggest market crashes ever and the young investors of our generation experienced something that they could never imagine. Their financial situation and investments suddenly changed and many of them did not know how to act or behave during this difficult period. This paper is based on qualitative research where ten different young investors have been interviewed to determine if they have matured and how their behavior has changed financially. The two research questions for the paper are: Is Covid-19 a blessing in disguise forcing young investors to mature, increasing their financial literacy, and thus change their investment behavior? and how has the Covid-19 pandemic affected young investors decision making on the stock market? The study and research questions were determined using three theories which are the efficient market hypothesis, behavioral finance, and the stages of change model. All three models were used to see how an individual behave during a financial crisis. The efficient market hypothesis basically argues that all relevant information matches the prices of stocks at any given time. Behavioral finance examines how an individual behave in a financial setting such as investment behaviors. Herding behavior and overconfidence are two cognitive biases within behavioral finance that was easily seen in the individuals for this study. The stages of change model states that an individual go through five different stages when a change of behavior is needed. This model could be applied on any individual, but a change of investments behavior should not go through so many stages as the model has so it had some limitations on the individuals in the study. The results and findings of the paper states that young investors have learned a valuable lesson from the Covid-19 pandemic increasing their financial literacy and creating more sustainable strategies for future investments.

The advances in deep neural networks in recent years have opened up the possibility of using image classification as a valuable tool in various areas, such as medical diagnosis from x-ray images. However, training deep neural networks requires large amounts of annotated data which has to be labelled manually, by a person. This process always involves a risk of data getting the wrong label, either by mistake or ill will, and training a machine learning model on mislabelled images has a negative impact on accuracy. Studies have shown that deep neural networks are so powerful at memorization that if they train on mislabelled data, they will eventually overfit this data, meaning learning a data representation that does not fully mirror real data. It is therefore vital to filter out these images. Area under the margin is a method that filters out mislabelled images by observing the changes in a network’s predictions during training. This method does however not take into consideration the overconfidence in deep neural networks and the uncertainty of a model can give indications of mislabelled images during training. Calibrating the confidence can be done through label smoothing and this thesis aims to investigate if the performance of Area under the margin can be improved when combined with different smoothing techniques. The goal is to develop a better insight into how different types of label noise affects models in terms of confidence, accuracy and the impact it has depending on the dataset itself. Three different label smoothing techniques will be applied to evaluate how well they can mitigate overconfidence, prevent the model from memorizing the mislabelled samples and if this can improve the filtering process for the Area under the margin method. Results show when training on data with noise present, adding label smoothing improves accuracy, an indication of noise robustness. Label noise is seen to decrease confidence in the model and at the same time reduce the calibration. Adding label smoothing prevents this and allows the model to be more robust as the noise rate increases. In the filtering process, label smoothing was seen to prevent correctly labelled samples to be filtered and received a better accuracy at identifying the noise. This did not improve the classification results on the filtered data, indicating that it is more important to filter out as many mislabelled samples as possible even if this means filtering out correctly labelled images as well. The label smoothing methods used in this work was set up to preserve calibration, a future topic of research could be to adjust the hyperparameters to increase confidence instead, focusing on removing as much noise as possible. / De senaste årens framsteg inom djupa neurala nätverk har öppnat för möjligheten att använda bildklassificering som ett värdefullt verktyg inom olika områden, såsom medicinsk diagnos från röntgenbilder. Men att träna djupa neurala nätverk kräver stora mängder annoterad data som måste märkas antingen av människor eller datorer. Denna process involverar alltid med en risk för att data får fel etikett, antingen av misstag eller av uppsåt och att träna en maskininlärningsmodell på felmärkta bilder har negativ inverkan på resultatet. Studier har visat att djupa neurala nätverk är så kraftfulla att memorera att om de tränar på felmärkta data, kommer de så småningom att överanpassa dessa data, vilket betyder att de kommer att lära sig en representation som inte helt speglar verklig data. Det är därför viktigt att filtrera bort dessa bilder. Area under marginalen är en metod som filtrerar bort felmärkta bilder genom att observera förändringarna i ett nätverks beteende under träning. Denna metod tar dock inte hänsyn till översäkerhet i djupa neurala nätverk och osäkerheten i en modell kan ge indikationer på felmärkta bilder under träning. Kalibrering av förtroendet kan göras genom etikettutjämning och denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka om prestandan för Area under marginalen kan förbättras i kombination med olika tekniker för etikettutjämning. Målet är att utveckla en bättre insikt i hur olika typer av brusiga etiketter påverkar modeller när det gäller tillförlitlighet, noggrannhet och den påverkan det har beroende på själva datasetet. Tre olika tekniker för etikettutjämning kommer att tillämpas för att utvärdera hur väl de kan mildra översäkerheten, förhindra modellen från att memorera de felmärkta bilderna och om detta kan förbättra filtreringsprocessen för Area under marginalen-metoden. Resultaten visar att när man tränar på data innehållande felmärkt data, förbättrar etikettutjämning noggrannheten vilket indikerar på robusthet mot felmärkning. Felmärkning tycks minska säkerheten hos modellen och samtidigt minska kalibreringen. Att lägga till etikettutjämning förhindrar detta och gör att modellen blir mer robust när mängden brusiga etiketter ökar. I filtreringsprocessen sågs att etikettutjämning förhindrar att korrekt märkt data filtreras bort och fick en bättre noggrannhet vid identifiering av bruset. Detta förbättrade dock inte klassificeringsresultaten på den filtrerade datan, vilket indikerar att det är viktigare att filtrera bort så mycket felmärkta prover som möjligt även om detta innebär att filtrera bort korrekt märkta bilder. Metoderna för etikettutjämning som används i detta arbete sattes upp för att bevara kalibreringen, ett framtida forskningsämne kan vara att justera hyperparametrarna för att istället öka förtroendet, med fokus på att ta bort så mycket felmärkta etiketter som möjligt.

Det senaste decenniet har användandet av sociala medier exploderat och blivit en plattformdär information och tips om aktier och investeringar delas ut. Unga personer är de störstaanvändarna av sociala medier, och tidigare studier visar att denna åldersgrupp uppvisar ettmer riskfyllt beteende på aktiemarknaden. Syftet med denna studie var således att undersökahuruvida det finns ett samband mellan aktivitet på sociala medier och riskbenägenhet. Vidareundersöktes om tre variabler - överdrivet självförtroende, ångeraversion och kognitivdissonans - hade en medierande effekt i sambandet mellan aktivitet på sociala medier ochriskbenägenhet. En kvantitativ metod med en enkätstudie användes för studiensdatainsamling. Statistiska mått, däribland regressionsanalys och medieringsanalys, användesför att besvara forskningsfrågan. Resultaten visade att sociala medier har en statistisktsignifikant effekt på riskbenägenhet på aktiemarknaden, och att överdrivet självförtroende haren statistiskt signifikant medierande effekt på relationen. Det fanns inga belägg ellerindikationer på att kognitiv dissonans och ångeraversion har en medierande effekt.Sammanfattningsvis visade studien att aktivitet på sociala medier i investeringssyfte kanbidra till ökad riskbenägenhet, och att överdrivet självförtroende har en viktig roll sommedierande variabel i förhållandet. / The last decade, the use of social media has escalated and become a platform whereinformation and tips about stocks and investments are shared. Young individuals aregenerally the most frequent users of social media, and studies also show that the same agegroup displays a more risk-prone behavior in financial markets. Therefore, the purpose of thisstudy was to examine the potential effect of social media activity on risk propensity on thestock market. Furthermore, the study investigated whether the three variables -overconfidence, regret aversion, and cognitive dissonance - could be classified as a mediatingvariable between social media activity and risk propensity. The study was conducted using aquantitative method, employing a survey, where 130 people responded. Statistical measuressuch as regression analysis and mediation analysis were used to answer the research question.The results showed that social media has a statistically significant effect on risk propensity onthe stock market, and that overconfidence has a statistically significant mediating effect onthe relationship. There was no evidence or indication that cognitive dissonance or regretaversion has a mediating effect. In summary, the study demonstrated that use of social mediain investment purposes can increase risk willingness, and that overconfidence plays animportant role as a mediating variable in this relationship.

Bakgrund: Efter många år av högkonjunktur är den svenska ekonomin prognostiserad att föras in i en lågkonjunktur under 2023. Hög inflation hanteras med stigande räntor vilket påverkar investerare på flera sätt, men det finns också en rad börspsykologiska faktorer som kan ha en inverkan på investerare och deras beslut. En åldersgrupp som aldrig investerat under en lågkonjunktur är generation Z. Det är därför intressant att undersöka hur börspsykologiska faktorer påverkar generation Z:s investeringsbeslut under ingången av en lågkonjunktur. Syfte: Syftet med arbetet är därför att undersöka och åskådliggöra vilka börspsykologiska faktorer som har en påverkan på generation Z:s beslutsfattande i ingången av en lågkonjunktur.  Metod: Studien har antagit en kvantitativ insamlingsmetod med en deduktiv ansats, detta genom en genomgripande litteraturstudie följt av en enkätundersökning. Analysen har antagit ett deskriptivt förhållningssätt men har också bestått av enkel linjär regression. Slutsats: Resultatet av undersökningen visar att det finns tendenser av samtliga börspsykologiska biaser i generation Z. Av regressionsanalysen att döma går det dock endast att utläsa signifikanta samband mellan biaserna overconfidence, herding behaviour och anchoring bias mot generation Z:s investeringsbeslut under ingången av en lågkonjunktur.