China is the world’s largest pork producer and consumer, and Hubei Province is one of the top pork production provinces in China. Since problems and risks have led to large-scale reduction of pork production and farmers’ income, Chinese government offers various policy measures to help farmers. Breeding sow insurance is considered as one of the most effective measures started in 2007. To better understand farmer’s need for breeding sow insurance and make proper policy insights, our research is the first empirical study in Hubei Province and one of the pioneer studies investigate farmer’s willingness to pay(WTP) for breeding sow insurance premium and preferred coverage level. Survey questionnaires were distributed to breeding sow farmers in 5 townships from Shayang County, Hubei Province. Based on random utility theory, we use tobit model to examine the factors that affect farmer’s WTP and preferred coverage level. The results showed that famers’ average WTP for premium was ¥14.4 and average preferred coverage level was ¥1191, both exceeded current values. Farmers’ trust towards insurance companies, household income, and knowledge about breeding sow insurance significantly affect their WTP and preferred coverage level.

The thesis consists of three self-contained essays on public policy in the macroeconomy. “Government Policy in the Formal and Informal Sectors” quantitatively investigates the interaction between the firms' choice to operate in the formal or the informal sector and government policy on taxation and enforcement. Taxes, enforcement, and regulation are incorporated in a general equilibrium model of firms differing in their productivities. The model quantitatively accounts for the keys aspects in the data and allows me to back out country-specific enforcement levels. Some policy reforms are analyzed and the welfare gains can be fairly large. “Determinants of Capital Intensive and R&D Intensive Foreign Direct Investment” studies the determinants of capital intensity and technology content of FDI. Using industry data on U.S. FDI abroad and data on many different host countries' institutional characteristics, we show that there is a differential response of FDI flows to investment climate according to the capital intensity of the industries receiving the investments. We find that better protection of property rights has a significant positive effect on R&D intensive capital flows. We find evidence that an increase in workers' bargaining power results in a reduction of both kinds of FDI. “Ambiguity Aversion, the Equity Premium, and the Welfare Costs of Business Cycles” examines the relevance of consumers’ ambiguity aversion for asset prices and how consumption fluctuations influence consumer welfare. First, in a Mehra-Prescott-style endowment economy, we calibrate ambiguity aversion so that asset prices are consistent with data: a high return on equity and a low return on risk-free bonds. We then use this calibration to investigate how much consumers would be willing to pay to reduce endowment fluctuations to zero, thus delivering a Lucas-style welfare cost of fluctuations. These costs turn out to be very large: consumers are willing to pay over 10% of consumption in permanent terms.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the potential effects of a cause related marketing approach inthe Swedish agricultural industry. This was done by analyzing the market potential and how an industry,through a marketing perspective, can help rejuvenate a troublesome sector, more specifically thedomestic milk sector. A mixed-method was utilized in order to answer the research question. Qualitativeinterviews with stakeholders throughout the supply chain were conducted to create greater knowledgeand serve as a structural guide for a quantitative questionnaire, which was answered by 182respondents. This thesis is centered on the theories of cause related marketing, fair trade and consumerbehavior. The results of the study show a gap in the market, which a cause related marketed productcould fulfill. In order to succeed the problem must be raised from the field of agriculture to a social level,which incorporates and affects all of us in our everyday living. The marketing communication shouldtherefore focus on the cultural importance of preserving the domestic agricultural industry in order tosucceed.

於土地標售成交案例中，市場上不乏以高溢價率標得土地之案例。惟究竟土地投標人何以願意支付高出底價甚多之金額取得土地?何以部份土地溢價率相對較高，其他土地溢價率相對較低?則未能從過去之單一文獻探究。 本文透過彙整過去關於土地標售溢價率之文獻，歸納拍賣理論共同價值觀點、私人價值觀點、特徵價格理論觀點、實質選擇權理論觀點，建立土地標售溢價率之分析架構。此外，本文以新莊副都心為實證分析標的，說明該分析架構之操作方式。其中，透過列聯表分析，卡方獨立性檢定、相關係數及其檢定，驗證新莊副都心土地標售溢價率高低之成因能透過前述四大觀點切入，且影響溢價率可再歸納為受人的因素、地的特質影響。至於該實證分析衍生之政策意涵有二。第一，若以財政角度切入，政府得將待標售抵費地劃分為面積較小之土地，藉以降低進入門檻；此外，政府亦能透過加強宣傳或採第二價格密封拍賣制增加競標人數，以創造高溢價率、達到增加財政收入之目的。第二，以社會責任角度切入，政府應擬定及檢視相關政策是否能減少因得標後短期轉售土地所創造之高溢價率，以降低市場上之投機情形。 / Why do the land auction participants bid a land at a premium? While reviewing the paper about the land auctions, none of the papers can describe the high premium situation in land auction completely. This thesis constructs a framework of price premium analysis in land auctions and includes the views of auction theory, hedonic model theory and real option theory. Besides, this research presents how to analyze the price premium in land auctions with an empirical study. Using the contingency table, Pearson's chi-squared test of independence and calculating the correlation coefficient with 52 land auction data in Xinzhuang Fuduxin, there are two findings. First, we can use the points of the analyzed framework to describe the price premium. Second, the reason of the price premium can be summarizes as the factors of people and land characters. According the empirical result, there are some policy implications. First, due to the view of enhancing revenue, the government can create high premiums by dividing the land into small areas to lower the entry barrier to participate the auction. Besides, the government can have more advertisements or sell the land through second price sealed bid auctions to increase the number of the competitors. Second, due to the view of responsibility, the government should restrain the phenomenon of selling the land in the short term.

This thesis seeks to address three important issues relating to the efficient functioning of the Istanbul Stock Exchange. In particular the thesis seeks to answer the following questions 1. What makes markets informationally efficient or inefficient? 2. Has increased stock market volatility had an impact on the equity risk premium and the cost of equity capital to firms? and 3. How is it possible to reconcile the view that markets are weak form efficient and technical analysis is a pervasive activity in such markets? Unlike previous studies, this thesis seeks to examine the issue of efficiency when institutional features specific to the market under investigation are taken into account. Specifically, the thesis adopts a testing methodology which enables us to recognize possible non-linear behaviour, thin trading and institutional changes in testing market efficiency. The results from this investigation show that informationally efficient markets are brought about by improving liquidity, ensuring that investors have access to high quality and reliable information and minimising the institutional restrictions on trading. In addition, the results suggest that emerging markets may initially be characterised as inefficient but over time, with the right regulatory framework, will develop into efficient and effective markets. The second important issue to be examined in this thesis concerns the impact of regulatory changes on market volatility and the cost of equity capital to firms. It is not sufficient to simply examine whether volatility has increased following a fmancial market innovation such as changes in regulation. Rather, it is necessary to investigate why volatility has changed, if it has changed, and the impact of such a change on the equity risk premium and the cost of equity capital to firms. Only then can inferences be drawn about the desirability or otherwise of innovations which bring about increases in volatility. Surprisingly, these issues have not been addressed in the literature. The evidence presented here suggests that the innovations which have taken place in the ISE have increased volatility, but also improved the pricing efficiency of the market and reduced the cost of equity capital to firms. Finally, the thesis tries to identify the conditions under which weak-form efficiency is consistent with technical analysis. It is shown that this paradox can be explained if adjustments to information are not immediate, such that market statistics, in particular statistics on trading volume contain information not impounded in current prices. In this context technical analysis on volume can be viewed as part of the process by which traders learn about fundamentals. Therefore, the thesis investigates the issue whether studying the joint dynamics of stock prices and trading volume can be used to predict weakly efficient stock prices. In summary, the findings of this thesis will be of interest to international investors, stock market regulators, firms raising funds from stock markets and participants in emerging capital markets in general. The implication of the results presented here is that informational efficient emerging markets are brought about by improving liquidity, ensuring that investors have access to high quality and reliable information and minimising the institutional restrictions on trading. In addition, the evolution in the regulatory framework of, and knowledge and awareness of investors in, emerging markets may mean that they will initially be characterised by inefficiency, but over time will develop into informational efficient and effectively functioning markets which allocate resources efficiently. In addition, the results of this thesis have important implications, for emerging markets in general, in identifying the regulatory framework that will achieve efficient pricing and a reduction in the cost of equity capital to firms operating in the economy.

In this thesis, stochastic methods are utilized to improve a familiar comprehensive probabilistic model to obtain realistic estimates of the earthquake insurance premium rates in different seismic zones of Turkey. The model integrates the information on future earthquake threat with the information on expected earthquake damage to buildings. The quantification of the future earthquake threat is achieved by making use of the seismic hazard analysis techniques. Due to the uncertainties involved, the hazard that may occur at a site during future earthquakes has to be treated in a probabilistic manner. Accessibility of past earthquake data from a number of different data sources, encourages the consideration of every single earthquake report. Seismic zonation of active earthquake generating regions has been improved as recent contributions are made available. Finally, up-to-date data bases have been utilized to establish local attenuation relationships reflecting the expected earthquake wave propagation and its randomness more effectively. The damage that may occur to structures during future earthquakes involves various uncertainties and also has to be treated in a probabilistic manner. For this purpose, damage probability matrices (DPM), expressing what will happen to buildings, designed according to some particular set of requirements, during earthquakes of various intensities, are constructed from observational and estimated data. With the above considerations, in order to demonstrate the application of the improved probabilistic method, earthquake insurance premium rates are computed for reinforced concrete and masonry buildings constructed in different seismic zones of Turkey.

本研究以民國91年至民國96年期間辦理私募案之上(市)櫃公司為研究對象，探究私募折溢價與私募後經營績效及市場反應之關聯性。 本研究將私募樣本區分為溢價組與折價組，溢價組於私募前後之營運績效均如預期般表現比折價組好，且溢價組與折價組於私募後之營運績效表現有更顯著的差異。同時，溢價組於私募後展現正向的市場反應，折價組於私募後則呈現負向的市場反應。 企業價值與成長機會高度相關，而溢價發行企業之成長機會對企業價值之影響程度較折價發行企業高。折(溢)價幅度與私募後營運績效、累計異常報酬間呈負(正)相關，顯示折溢價幅度可能反映出私募企業未來成長與風險之訊息。 / This study examines the effects of price discount (premium) on performance and market reaction in private placement. Three main findings are as follows. After classifying the sample into two categories, premium and discount, this study finds that the operating performance of the premium group is better than that of the discount group both before and after the private placement. The difference is especially significant after the private placement. Furthermore, the premium group shows positive market reaction after private placement while the discount group negative. Firm value is highly related to growth opportunity, and the influence of growth opportunity on firm value of premium group is significantly higher than that of discount group. The results also show that the magnitude of price discount (premium) is negatively (positively) related to operating performance and cumulative abnormal return after private placement. This may indicate that the price discount (premium) reflects the signal of future growth and risk of the firm in private placement.

This dissertation, which consists of three essays, studies three applications. Each of them emphasizes the microfoundations of economic models. The first essay proposes a nonparametric estimation of structural labor supply and exact welfare change under nonconvex piecewise-linear budget sets. Different from previous literature, my method focuses on a nonparametric specification of an indirect utility function. I find that working with the indirect utility function is very useful in simultaneously addressing the labor supply problems with individual heterogeneity, nonconvex budget sets, labor nonparticipation, and measurement errors in working hours that previous literature was unable to. Further, the estimated indirect utility function proves to be convenient and efficient in calculating exact welfare change and deadweight loss under general piecewise-linear budget sets. In the second essay, I solve the equity premium, risk-free rate, and capital structure puzzles by laying a more solid microfoundation for consumption-based asset pricing models. I argue that the above two asset pricing puzzles arise from the aggregation of hump-shaped life-cycle consumption into per capita consumption, which accounts for the unanimous rejections of Euler equations in the literature. As for the third puzzle, I show that a firm's capital structure can be determined by heterogenous investors maximizing life-time utility even though the capital structure is irrelevant on the firm side. The endogenously determined leverage generates an even larger equity premium than a fixed one. The third essay studies the solution concepts of coalition equilibrium. Traditional solution concepts such as Strong Nash Equilibrium, Coalition-proof Nash Equilibrium, Largest Consistent Set, and Coalition Equilibrium violate the fundamental principles of individual rationality. I define a new solution concept, Weak Coalition Equilibrium, which requires each coalitional deviation to be within-coalition self-enforceable and cross-coalition self-enforceable. The cross-coalition self-enforceability endows coalitions with farsightedness. Weak Coalition Equilibrium is a generalization of Coalition-proof Nash Equilibrium and a re nement of the concept Nash Equilibrium. It exists under a weak condition. Most importantly, it is in line with the principle of individual rationality.

This thesis contains empirical studies of portfolio choice and asset prices. The first two chapters deal with incorporating labor supply into models traditionally only focusing on consumption. Can the risk premium on stocks be better understood when taking labor supply into account? This is the topic of the first chapter. Do possibilities of varying labor supply, and thus hedging stock market risk, help explain the stock ownership patterns of households? This question is what the second chapter tries to answer. If labor income moves with the stock market, an attempt should be made to hedge this with a lower share of stocks in the portfolio and, but do households act according to this rule? This is what the third chapter investigates. Chapter one, Labor Supply Flexibility and Portfolio Choice: Evidence from the PSID, examines the relationship between labor supply flexibility and portfolio choice. Theoretical articles have shown that, ceteris paribus, the optimal portfolio share of risky assets (stocks) increases with labor supply flexibility, due to increased possibilities of hedging financial risk by adjusting the labor supply. Using PSID household data, this hypothesis is tested using a direct measure of labor supply flexibility from survey questions. The results indicate that the total portfolio share is increased by labor supply flexibility. When separated, most of this effect seems to come from the increased probability of stock ownership due to flexible labor, rather than an increased portfolio share among stockholders. Chapter two, Can Leisure Explain the Equity Premium Puzzle? An Empirical Investigation, investigates the asset pricing properties of non-separable utility functions with consumption and leisure. The parameter restrictions needed to match the historical equity premium are explored using US data on consumption, hours and returns. Empirically, it is shown that to match the equity premium with a low level of risk aversion, consumption and leisure need to be strong complements, i.e. have a very low substitution elasticity. Chapter three, Income Risk and Stockholdings: Evidence from Swedish Microdata, examines the relationship between income risk and portfolio choice. It empirically investigates whether the stock market risk (the covariation with the stock market) in labor income is reflected by an offsetting lower share of stocks in financial portfolios, an effect that has been shown to exist in theoretical articles. Swedish microdata from HINK on households’ income and wealth are used for this purpose. In repeated cross-sections, households are divided into "portfolio cohorts" corresponding to percentiles of the share of stocks in financial assets. Income risk, i.e. the regression beta of (log) income growth on aggregate stock returns, is compared for the different groups. As predicted by theory, the results provide some support for a negative relationship between income risk and the share of stocks. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk., 2004

Uno de los problemas principales de la literature moderna de ciclos es la imposibilidad de replicar el comportamiento de los rendimientos de activos financieros. Varios autores han incorporado mercados financieros en el modelo basico de ciclos, demonstrando que, para cualquier calibracion, este tipo de modelos predice una prima de riesgo de practicamente cero. Una de las razones del fracaso de estos modelos es que utilizan un agente representativo. En este caso los mercados financieros son completos. En esta tesis relajamos este supuesto al incorporar riesgo idiosincratico, que genera heterogeneidad entre la poblacion. Uno de los objectivos principales es ver si estas extensiones pueden ayudar a mejorar las predicciones del modelo basico con respecto a los rendimientos de activos financieros. Debemos mencionar que, desde la formulacion original de los puzzles financieros de Mehra y Prescott (85), ha surgido una enorme literatura que intenta analizar las implicaciones de modelos con heterogeneidad respecto a los rendimientos de los activos financieros. Entre otros Aiyagari and Gertler (91), Heaton and Lucas (96), Lucas (94), Marcet and Singleton (99), y Telmer (93) han estudiado este problema bajo el supuesto de que el consumo es exogeno. Si embargo, en nuestro analisis incorporamos production y por tanto ofrecemos un modelo mucho mas apropiado para estudiar los rendimientos financieros. En particular, el consumo se deriva de la maximizacion de la utilidad y por tanto no es exogeno. Ademas, el valor de las acciones se determina a traves de la optimizacion de la empresa. La presencia de un sector de produccion implica que tenemos que tratar un tema al que no se le ha dado demasiada importancia hasta ahora en la literatura. Con mercados financieros incompletos y heterogeneidad de los accionistas, el problema de maximizacion del valor de la empresa no esta bien definido. Esto significa que tenemos que incorporar objectivos que no son estandares. Una de las contribuciones importantes de este trabajo es demostrar como se puede solucionar este problema. / One of the main problems with the modern real business cycle (RBC) literature is its inability to replicate the empirical behavior of the main asset returns in the data. Several authors have incorporated financial markets into the basic model showing that, regardless of the parameterization or the incorporation of other frictions, like capital adjustment costs, these models are unable to replicate the key financial statistics in the data, predicting an equity premium which is essentially zero, and asset return volatilities that are also far from reality. One of the main reasons for the lack of success of the previous models may be the fact that they are using a representative agent environment. In this case, financial markets are effectively complete, independently of the existing asset structure. In the present thesis, this assumption is relaxed by incorporating both, idiosyncratic labor income risk and imperfect risk sharing, leading to ex-post household heterogeneity and to an incomplete financial market structure. One of the main objectives is therefore to see, if these extensions can help to improve the asset pricing implications of the standard model. We have to mention that, since the original statement of the asset pricing puzzles by Mehra and Prescott (85), there has been a large strand of literature trying to analyze the asset pricing implications of a context with household heterogeneity and incomplete financial markets. Among others, Aiyagari and Gertler (91), Heaton and Lucas (96), Lucas (94), Marcet and Singleton (99), and Telmer (93) have studied such a framework under the assumption of exogenously determined asset returns and consumption processes. Note, however, that our analysis goes one step further in the sense that it incorporates a production technology, offering a better foundation of asset prices than the standard exchange economy. In particular, consumption is derived from explicit utility maximization instead of being specified exogenously. In addition, the value of price of equity is determined endogenously via the optimization problem of the firm, which also breaks the identity between dividends and consumption processes in exchange economies. We indeed believe, that a detailed and rigorous analysis of asset pricing requires a general equilibrium model of this type. Note also that the presence of a non-trivial production sector involves addressing an important issue, which has not been given very much attention in the previous asset pricing literature. Under incomplete financial markets and household (shareholder) heterogeneity, the usual profit maximization of the firm is no longer well defined. Thus, unless one assumes that the firm is myopic, in the sense that it solves a static optimization problem by maximizing period by period profits, one has to incorporate non-standard firm objectives into the model. A second important objective or contribution of the present thesis is therefore to illustrate how to get around the problem of the firm by incorporating a firm objective which is adequate for the case in which financial markets are incomplete.