At the beginning of this thesis we discuss DEA methods, which measure efficiency of Decision Making Units by comparing weighted inputs and outputs. First we describe basic DEA models without random inputs and outputs then stochastic DEA models which are derived from the deterministic ones. We describe more approaches to stochastic DEA models, for example using scenario approach or chance constrained programming problems. Another approach for measuring efficiency employs stochastic dominance. Stochastic dominance is a relation that allows to compare two random variables. We describe the first and second order stochastic dominance. First we consider pairwise stochastic efficiency, then we discuss the first and second order stochastic dominance portfolio efficiency. We describe different tests to measure this type of efficiency. At the end of this thesis we study efficiency of US stock portfolios using real historical data and we compare results obtained when using stochastic DEA models and stochastic dominance. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

We evaluate the use of Generalized Empirical Likelihood (GEL) estimators in portfolios efficiency tests for asset pricing models in the presence of conditional information. Estimators from GEL family presents some optimal statistical properties, such as robustness to misspecification and better properties in finite samples. Unlike GMM, the bias for GEL estimators do not increase as more moment conditions are included, which is expected in conditional efficiency analysis. We found some evidences that estimators from GEL class really performs differently in small samples, where efficiency tests using GEL generate lower estimates compared to tests using the standard approach with GMM. With Monte Carlo experiments we see that GEL has better performance when distortions are present in data, especially under heavy tails and Gaussian shocks. / Neste estudo avaliamos o uso de estimadores Generalized Empirical Likelihood (GEL) em testes de eficiência de portfólios para modelos apreçamento de ativos na presença de informação condicional. Estimadores da família GEL apresentam algumas propriedades estatísticas ótimas, tais como robustez à má especificação e melhores propriedades em amostras finitas. Diferentemente do GMM, o viés dos estimadores GEL não aumenta conforme se incluem mais condições de momentos, o que é esperado na análise de eficiência condicional. Encontramos algumas evidências de que os estimadores da classe GEL realmente performam diferentemente em amostras finitas, em que testes de eficiência com o uso do GEL geram estimativas menores comparadas aos testes com o uso da abordagem padrão com GMM. Através dos experimentos de Monte Carlo vemos que o GEL possui melhor performance quando distorções estão presentes nos dados, especialmente sob heavy tails e choques Gaussianos.

<p><strong><em>“While project management and program management have traditionally focused on ‘doing work right’, portfolio management is concerned with ‘doing the right work’” (PMI,2006)</em></strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>Nowadays organizations are facing problems with too many projects and having limited resources to execute these projects. Therefore the role of portfolio control is gaining more importance to yield the right balance, mix and number of projects, and also to deal with the challenge of maximizing the value of the portfolio. Therefore the organizations rely on effective portfolio management and are developing new methods to deal with these challenges. Hence present study involves study of those organizations that rely on portfolio control techniques to effectively manage their portfolio of projects.</p><p> </p><p>The aim of this research is to investigate the role of portfolio control techniques in achieving efficiency in project based firms, examine relationship between control techniques and the portfolio efficiency, and to find the role of contextual factors like project and governance type in impacting the portfolio efficiency. Three portfolio control factors: portfolio selection, portfolio reporting, and decision making style were identified and portfolio efficiency was explained by two measures: achievement of portfolio results and achievement of project and program level purpose.</p><p> </p><p>The research was conducted at two multinational organizations, a pharmaceutical company in Europe and engineering and contracting transportation company in Asia. Case study research strategy was used, and data was collected through semi- structured interviews to investigate the impact of using these portfolio control techniques in a project based firms.</p><p> </p><p>The results of the research indicate that these control techniques helps to select and analyse the portfolio from strategic, financial and risk perspective. Furthermore it helps to balance the organizational priorities by taking into consideration project type, market sector, resource constraints and product lines. The portfolio control techniques also involve portfolio reporting which is considered as formal way of communication and information sharing and is believed to be significant project-level factor contributing to portfolio efficiency. Lastly, portfolio decision making helps the organizations in making the right decision in the best interest of the organization. All these control variables were found to have a significant impact on achieving results and achieving project and programme level purpose which in our research are the dimensions of portfolio efficiency.</p><p> </p><p>In our study we also found that there exists a positive relationship between the portfolio control techniques and portfolio efficiency which is affected by the contextual variables such as project type, governance type, organizational complexity, co-localization of team members, communication and clarity of goals and objectives.</p>

“While project management and program management have traditionally focused on ‘doing work right’, portfolio management is concerned with ‘doing the right work’” (PMI,2006) Nowadays organizations are facing problems with too many projects and having limited resources to execute these projects. Therefore the role of portfolio control is gaining more importance to yield the right balance, mix and number of projects, and also to deal with the challenge of maximizing the value of the portfolio. Therefore the organizations rely on effective portfolio management and are developing new methods to deal with these challenges. Hence present study involves study of those organizations that rely on portfolio control techniques to effectively manage their portfolio of projects.   The aim of this research is to investigate the role of portfolio control techniques in achieving efficiency in project based firms, examine relationship between control techniques and the portfolio efficiency, and to find the role of contextual factors like project and governance type in impacting the portfolio efficiency. Three portfolio control factors: portfolio selection, portfolio reporting, and decision making style were identified and portfolio efficiency was explained by two measures: achievement of portfolio results and achievement of project and program level purpose.   The research was conducted at two multinational organizations, a pharmaceutical company in Europe and engineering and contracting transportation company in Asia. Case study research strategy was used, and data was collected through semi- structured interviews to investigate the impact of using these portfolio control techniques in a project based firms.   The results of the research indicate that these control techniques helps to select and analyse the portfolio from strategic, financial and risk perspective. Furthermore it helps to balance the organizational priorities by taking into consideration project type, market sector, resource constraints and product lines. The portfolio control techniques also involve portfolio reporting which is considered as formal way of communication and information sharing and is believed to be significant project-level factor contributing to portfolio efficiency. Lastly, portfolio decision making helps the organizations in making the right decision in the best interest of the organization. All these control variables were found to have a significant impact on achieving results and achieving project and programme level purpose which in our research are the dimensions of portfolio efficiency.   In our study we also found that there exists a positive relationship between the portfolio control techniques and portfolio efficiency which is affected by the contextual variables such as project type, governance type, organizational complexity, co-localization of team members, communication and clarity of goals and objectives.

We evaluate the use of Generalized Empirical Likelihood (GEL) estimators in portfolios efficiency tests for asset pricing models in the presence of conditional information. Estimators from GEL family presents some optimal statistical properties, such as robustness to misspecification and better properties in finite samples. Unlike GMM, the bias for GEL estimators do not increase as more moment conditions are included, which is expected in conditional efficiency analysis. We found some evidences that estimators from GEL class really performs differently in small samples, where efficiency tests using GEL generate lower estimates compared to tests using the standard approach with GMM. With Monte Carlo experiments we see that GEL has better performance when distortions are present in data, especially under heavy tails and Gaussian shocks. / Neste estudo avaliamos o uso de estimadores Generalized Empirical Likelihood (GEL) em testes de eficiência de portfólios para modelos apreçamento de ativos na presença de informação condicional. Estimadores da família GEL apresentam algumas propriedades estatísticas ótimas, tais como robustez à má especificação e melhores propriedades em amostras finitas. Diferentemente do GMM, o viés dos estimadores GEL não aumenta conforme se incluem mais condições de momentos, o que é esperado na análise de eficiência condicional. Encontramos algumas evidências de que os estimadores da classe GEL realmente performam diferentemente em amostras finitas, em que testes de eficiência com o uso do GEL geram estimativas menores comparadas aos testes com o uso da abordagem padrão com GMM. Através dos experimentos de Monte Carlo vemos que o GEL possui melhor performance quando distorções estão presentes nos dados, especialmente sob heavy tails e choques Gaussianos.

The thesis deals with high-order stochastic dominance of random variables and portfolios. The summary of findings about high-order stochastic dominance and portfolio efficiency is presented. As a main part of the thesis it is proven that under assumption of both normal and gamma distribution the infinite-order stochastic dominance is equivalent to the second-order stochastic dominance. The necessary and sufficient condition for the infinite-order stochastic dominance portfolio efficiency is derived under the assumption of normality. The condition is used in the empirical part of the thesis where parametrical approach to the portfolio efficiency is compared to the nonparametric scenario approach. The derived necessary and sufficient condition is based on the assumption of normality; therefore we use two sets of data, one with fulfilled assumption of normality and the other for which the assumption of normality was unambigously rejected. Consequently, the influence of fulfillment of the normality assumption on the results of the necessary and sufficient condition for portfolio efficiency is estimated.

Title: Semi-infinite programming: theory and portfolio efficiency application Author: Bc. Lukáš Klouda Department: Department of Probability and Mathematical Statistics Supervisor: RNDr. Ing. Miloš Kopa, PhD. Supervisor's e-mail address: kopa@karlin.mff.cuni.cz Abstract: The thesis deals with application of semi-infinite programming to a portfolio efficiency testing. The summary of semi-infinite programming, first and second order optimality conditions and duality in linear semi-infinite programming is presented. The optimization problem for a portfolio efficiency testing with respect to the second order stochastic dominance under assumption of discrete, normal, Students and general elliptical distribution is formulated. Conditional value at risk(CVaR) is used as the risk measure, because of its consistency with the second order stochastic dominance relation. Efficiency of index PX with respect to the second order stochastic dominance is tested. The tests are performed using the program GAMS.

Valet av vilka produkter som ska finnas tillgängliga på marknaden fungerar som ettkonkurrensmedel för företag. Att prioritera redan existerande, lansera nya eller avveckla föråldrade produkter är viktiga beslut för ett företags prestanda. För att minimera olika typer av risk kan in- och utfasningsstrategier användas. Dessa kan bestämmas med hjälp av olikatyper av nyckeltal som kan delas upp i olika kategorier, så kallade riskfaktorer. Studiens mål är att bestämma dessa nyckeltal samt vilken strategi som passar för respektive produkt vid in och utfasning. Studien bygger på intervjuer som genomförts med fyra nyckelpersoner på verkstadsföretaget Seco Tools. Intervjuerna undersöker företagets in- och utfasningsprocess. Detta innefattar viktiga nyckeltal samt hur de i sin tur påverkar risk- vid in och utfasning. Studien resulterar i en modell med fyra riskdimensioner samt de riskfaktorer och nyckeltal som tillhör respektive dimension. Modellen ger en fingervisning vilken typ av in- och utfasningsmetod som är lämplig att använda. Studiens resultat visar på att företagets arbetsprocess och nyckeltal delvis stämmer överens med vald teori, men att det också är stor skillnad på hur en in- och utfasning går till i praktiken jämfört med det optimala utfallet i teorin.

Ce travail doctoral s’interroge sur les déterminants des comportements d’épargne salariale. Le chapitre 1 présente un état des lieux de l’épargne salariale. Nous détaillons ensuite les principales règles de fonctionnement de l’épargne salariale. Nous présentons enfin les principaux déterminants des comportements d’épargne salariale identifiés par la littérature. Le chapitre 2 examine les déterminants socio-économiques de l’efficience des portefeuilles d’épargne salariale. Il propose également une analyse des déterminants des erreurs d’investissement des salariés mesurées par un indice. Nous dissocions les investissements faits dans le cadre des augmentations de capital réservées aux salariés et ceux faits au titre des autres plans d’épargne entreprise. Nous nous intéressons d’une part à la décision binaire d’investir ou pas, et à l’efficience du portefeuille d’autre part. Notre échantillon porte sur 30 000 salariés d’un groupe bancaire français et contient des informations sur les caractéristiques individuelles des salariés et le détail des montants investis dans les plans et leurs caractéristiques de rentabilité et de risque. Les caractéristiques des salariés affectent significativement l’efficience des portefeuilles. Nous mettons en évidence une forte concentration en actions de l’entreprise. Nous montrons également que l’investissement des salariés est sous optimal compte tenu de l’écart existant entre le ratio de Sharpe optimal que nous avons calculés et le ratio de Sharpe des salariés. Nous régressons enfin cette différence sur les caractéristiques des salariés. Le chapitre 3 analyse empiriquement les déterminants de l’investissement en actions de l’entreprise. L’actionnariat salarié diminuerait les comportements de retrait des salariés tels que l’absentéisme et la rotation du personnel. Or, la causalité inverse que nous postulerons n’avait jamais été analysée : l’effet de l’absentéisme et de la rotation du personnel sur l’investissement en actions de l’entreprise par ses salariés. Nous montrons que l’absentéisme et la rotation du personnel affectent significativement la participation. Nous validons nos hypothèses de recherche à l’aide de diverses méthodes de régression. Nous analysons un panel d’environ 15 000 salariés de près de 900 filiales d’un groupe français coté appartenant au secteur de la construction, des travaux publics et des concessions sur une période de 5 ans. La participation au plan d’actionnariat salarié dépend du niveau d’absentéisme et de rotation du personnel au sein de l’entreprise. L’absentéisme et la rotation du personnel influencent l’investissement en actions de l’entreprise différemment selon la catégorie socioprofessionnelle du salarié et les motifs d’absences et de sorties Le chapitre 4 administre un questionnaire à des épargnants individuels afin d’évaluer leur connaissance financière. Nous nous sommes inspirés des enquêtes de Lusardi et de la Banque Centrale Européenne afin de réaliser un questionnaire adapté au cas français. Nous constatons l’influence de l’éducation financière sur les décisions d’investir. Le questionnaire a été diffusé auprès des salariés d’un établissement bancaire d’une part et de leurs clients d’autre part. Bien que nos résultats confirment dans l’ensemble la littérature sur la connaissance financière, nous identifions plusieurs nouveaux résultats. / This dissertation questions the determinants of employee savings behavior. Chapter 1 presents an overview of employee savings schemes. We then detail the main rules of employee savings schemes. Finally, we present the main determinants of the behavior of employee savings schemes identified by the literature. Chapter 2 examines the socio-economic determinants of employee savings’ portfolio efficiency. It also proposes an analysis of the determinants of investment errors of employees measured by an index. We dissociate investments made in the context of Employee stock purchase plan and those made through other employee savings plans. We are interested in the binary decision to invest or not on the one hand and in the portfolio efficiency on the other hand. Our sample covers 30,000 employees of a French bank, contains information on the individual characteristics of employees and details of the amounts invested in the plans, their risk and risk characteristics. The characteristics of the employees significantly affect the efficiency of the portfolios. We highlight a strong concentration of company stocks. We also show that the investment of employees is not optimal given the gap between the optimal Sharpe ratio and the actual Sharpe ratio. We finally regress this difference on the characteristics of the employees. Chapter 3 empirically analyzes the determinants of investment in company shares. Employee stock ownership would reduce the withdrawal behavior of employees, such as absenteeism and turnover. However, the reverse causality we assume had never been analyzed: the effect of absenteeism and the staff turnover on the investment in employer’s stocks. We show that absenteeism and staff turnover significantly affect participation. We validate our hypotheses using a variety of regression methods. We analyze a panel of approximately 15,000 employees of nearly 900 subsidiaries over a period of 5 years of a French listed company belonging to the construction, public works and concessions sector. Participation in employee stock ownership plan depends on the level of absenteeism and turnover of employees within the company. Absenteeism and staff turnover influence the investment in company shares differently depending on the employee's occupations category and the reasons for absences and departures. Chapter 4 analyze the results of a survey we sent to individual savers to assess their financial literacy. We translated the surveys of Lusardi and the European Central Bank to produce a questionnaire adapted to the French case. We see the influence of financial education on investment decisions. The questionnaire was distributed to the employees of a bank on the one hand and their customers on the other. Although our results generally confirm the literature on financial literacy, we identify several new findings.