O Presente trabalho tem por objetivo apresentar uma proposta de metodologia para a fixação do encargo de responsabilidade da concessionária de distribuição de energia; e o cálculo da participação financeira do consumidor referente ao custo dos investimentos para atendimentos de pedidos que não se enquadrem nos critérios de universalização do uso de energia elétrica. A proposta foi baseada na utilização dos preceitos e diretrizes tarifárias vigentes no País, elaboradas pelo órgão regulador - Aneel e que passou a referenciar as relações econômico-financeiras entre concessionária e clientes. A Tarifa de Uso do Sistema de Distribuição foi conceito balizar desta proposta metodológica. Para consistir este trabalho foram elaboradas comparações dos encargos das concessionárias e da participação financeira dos consumidores para 260 obras, entre o disposto nesta proposta e a metodologia definida pela Portaria 05/90 do Dnaee, que foi revogada pelo regulamento que instituiu a universalização em 2002. Dessa forma foi possível determinar, a partir de dados concretos, a viabilidade e o impacto da proposta apresentada. / The present work has the objective of presenting a methodology for the setting of the incumbency of responsibility of the concessionaire of energy distribution and a calculation of the financial participation of the consumer referring to the cost of the investments for attendance of orders that are not fit in the criteria of universalization of the use of electric energy. The proposal was based on the use of the new criteria of Tariff elaborated by the regulating agent - ANEEL and which has started to be a reference for the economic financial relations between concessionaire and customers.The Tariff over the Use of the Distribution System was the maker of this methodological proposal.In order to make the proposal consistent, comparisons were made between the methodology used by the sector before the advent of the Law 10,438 of 26/04/2002 which instituted the Universalization and finished Regulation 05/90 which was the maker of the calculations of incumbency and financial participation in the Brazilian electric sector, with 260 job sites.This way, it was possible to determine with proper data the viability of the proposal presented.

Cette thèse regroupe trois articles sur les déséquilibres macroéconomiques en Europe, que ces déséquilibres se manifestent par une divergence entre pays membres de la zone euro, ou par une déformation du partage de la richesse entre travail et capital. Depuis l’introduction de l’Euro jusqu'à la crise financière globale de 2008, les déséquilibres macroéconomiques se sont creusés parmi les États membres : les prix et les salaires entre pays ont augmenté beaucoup plus rapidement dans les pays les plus pauvres initialement que dans le reste de la zone. Ces déséquilibres étaient tout d’abord perçus comme reflétant un processus de rattrapage. Cette interprétation a été remise en cause à partir de la crise financière globale de 2008. Ils ont été pointés du doigt comme reflétant de «mauvais» déséquilibres, signes d’une perte de compétitivité dans la « périphérie » de la zone euro. Les deux premiers chapitres identifient les facteurs à l’origine de ces déséquilibres. Ils montrent qu’ils sont en grande partie la conséquence de l’intégration économique elle-même. Le troisième chapitre s’intéresse au partage de la richesse entre travail et capital. Depuis le début des années 1980, la part de la richesse distribuée au travail a diminué dans les pays européens. En parallèle, la part des profits distribués aux actionnaires sous forme de dividendes et de rachats d’actions a augmenté. Ce chapitre suggère que sont en cause des changements dans la gouvernance des entreprises. Ces changements se manifestent par un rôle accru des investisseurs institutionnels dans le capital des sociétés non-financières, qui sont alors amenées à faire prédominer la rémunération des actionnaires au détriment du travail. / This doctoral thesis gathers three articles on macroeconomic imbalances in Europe. It deals with two types of imbalances: imbalances among European countries, and within these countries, in the distribution of income between labour and capital. From the Euro inception up to the 2008 global financial crisis, macroeconomic imbalances widened among Member States. This divergence took the form of strong differences in the dynamics of prices and wages: they increased much faster in "peripheral" economies than in "core" countries. These imbalances were first interpreted as reflecting a catch-up and convergence process of the poorest countries of the area. Both economists and policymakers challenged this view in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. Imbalances were then pointed out as reflecting a broader competitiveness problem in the "sinful periphery" compared to the "virtuous core". The first two chapters ask what are the main contributors to these imbalances. They argue that, in peripheral economies, they mostly reflect the process of economic integration. The third chapter focuses on the distribution of income between labour and capital. Since the early 1980s, there has been a decline in the share of income accruing to labour in European countries. This decline was parallel to an increase in the profit share, that reflects mostly the dynamics of payouts (dividends and buybacks) to shareholders. This chapter argues that these trends could be linked to recent trends in firm ownership. Non-financial corporations are increasingly owned by institutional investors, whom exert pressures for tighter governance in favor of shareholders and to the expense of labour.

Today it is common for shares to be listed in alphabetical order in newspapers, indexes, databases, watch lists and statements. Investors often face a search problem because of the thousands of available shares. It causes investors to make use of a ready-made stock list to make a financial decision. In this study, we have investigated whether there is alphabetical bias on the Swedish stock exchange and whether it has any impact on the investment decision. Previous research shows evidence that alphabetical bias occurs in the selection of shares based on alphabetically arranged lists on the US stock exchange. In this study, a quantitative method was used for data collection, later data were processed using univariate analysis, bivariate analysis, and multivariate analysis. Using the data collected, the different variables could be calculated, Tobin's Q, Market value, Name flow, Stock turnover rate, Stock price, and Age. The result cannot ensure whether alphabetical bias occurs in the Swedish stock market, however, we can with 99% certainty determine that early placed shares receive higher Tobin's Q than late placed. / Idag är det vanligt att aktier noteras i alfabetisk ordning i tidningar, index, databaser, bevakningslistor och uttalanden. Investerare möter ofta ett sök problem på grund av de tusentals tillgängliga aktierna. Det får investerarna att ta hjälp av en färdig ordnad aktielista för att fatta ett finansiellt beslut. I den här studien har vi undersökt ifall det råder alfabetisk bias på Nasdaq Stockholmsbörsen och om det har någon inverkan på investeringsbeslutet. Tidigare forskning visar belägg för att alfabetisk bias förekommer vid val av aktier utifrån alfabetisk ordnade listor på den amerikanska börsen. I denna studie tillämpades en kvantitativ metod för datainsamlingen, senare bearbetades data med hjälp av univariat analys, bivariat analys och multivariat analys. Med hjälp av den insamlade data kunde de olika variablerna räknas fram, Tobins Q, Marknadsvärde, Namnflyt, Aktieomsättningshastighet, Aktiekurs (pris) och Ålder. Resultatet kan inte säkerställa om alfabetisk bias förekommer på den svenska aktiemarknaden, dock kan vi med 99% säkerhet fastslå att tidigt placerade aktier erhåller högre Tobins Q än sent placerade.

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2014. / The use of a Covered Call strategy has long been favoured by investors the world over for its potential to enhance yield in a long-only equity portfolio. There already exists a wealth of research examining the risk and return features and theories of this strategy. This paper aims to contribute to this debate by conducting research that is specific to the South African equity market and considered from the perspective of a retail investor, particularly by tracking the negative friction induced by transaction costs. It also seeks to answer the question of which Covered Call strategies provide the best risk-adjusted returns by pricing various expiry range and moneyness combinations over differing market trend phases during a 13-year period of trade on the JSE.

In my first chapter, we document and study the use of Rule 10b5 1 preset repurchase plans. We exploit this new and widespread form of payout to examine an issue at the core of payout decisions—the tradeoff between commitment and financial flexibility. Relative to open market repurchases, preset plans provide an expanded repurchase window and increased legal cover, albeit at the cost of reducing repurchase flexibility and the option to time repurchases. These costs and benefits are significantly associated with Rule 10b5-1 adoption. Consistent with preset plans signaling commitment, Rule 10b5-1 repurchase announcements are associated with greater and faster completion rates, with more positive market reactions, and with more dividend substitution than open market repurchases. Lastly, we find that preset repurchase plans represent a unique payout tool whose introduction encouraged a different set of firms to buy back stock and significantly altered the payout landscape. My second chapter examines the strategic use and timing of share repurchases by insiders for personal gain. Using grant level compensation data and a hand-collected sample of monthly repurchases, I find a positive relation between CEO equity sales and share repurchases. I identify the relationship by instrumenting equity sales with equity grant vesting schedules. This relation is persistent across firm characteristics and does not appear to be destroying shareholder value. The results indicate managerial self-interest motivates a subset of share repurchases.

This research attempts to test the performance of the Fama-French three-factor model (1993) in explaining the stock portfolio returns on the China A-share Stock Market from 1996 to 2005. We will follows Drew, Naughton and Veeraraghavan (2003) method, who adopted the Fama and French's (1993) method to test small sample stock markets. We find the positive relation between book-to-market ratio and stock excess returns, and the negative relationship between size and stock excess returns. And our result demonstrated that the three-factor model is more accurate in predicting stock excess returns than the CAPM, since the adjusted R² value increased and the intercept are not significantly different from zero. The size effect is stronger than the BTM ratio effect. Moreover, our results present that stock profitability is related to size and BTM ratio in China stock market. However, the relationship between stock profitability and size and BTM ratio are unconditional.

Numerous value relevance investigations use the Ohlson (1995) model to empirically explore the value relevance of accounting variables such as earnings and goodwill amortisation by employing equity price as the dependent variable, but do not incorporate the most recent prior period’s equity price as an additional explanatory variable. The Ohlson (1995) model and the efficient market literature indicate that, since share prices represent the present value of future permanent earnings in an efficient market, the most recent prior period’s equity price should be a crucial variable for explaining the current price in value relevance models. This thesis therefore outlines how the Ohlson (1995) model incorporates the most recent prior period’s price as a potentially important value relevant explanatory variable, and reformulates the Ohlson (1995) model to demonstrate how the empirical specification of value relevance regression models can be greatly improved by including the most recent prior period’s price as an additional explanatory variable. We revisit the Jennings, LeClere, and Thompson (2001) empirical specification used to study whether goodwill amortisation is value relevant and potentially informative with respect to future earnings to illustrate the improvement to the Ohlson (1995) value relevance model empirical specification. When the model specification is improved by including the most recent prior period’s price as an additional explanatory variable, trailing earnings are shown, using time series, cross-sectional, and returns-based analysis, to be at best marginally value relevant when empirically explaining share prices in value relevance regression models. The thesis also indicates that goodwill amortisation should not be deducted from earnings in accounting statements because the presence of goodwill amortisation is significantly positively (not negatively) related to equity prices. This effect is eliminated when the most recent prior period’s price is included as an additional explanatory variable in the regression analysis, thus indicating that goodwill amortisation information as well as trailing earnings information have already been incorporated into the most recent prior period’s price. The thesis further indicates that value relevance studies that use the Ohlson (1995) model should use, for econometric reasons, change in price or else returns, not the price level, as the dependent variable. When returns are used to test the value relevance of goodwill amortisation, firms that report positive goodwill amortization actually have higher subsequent returns, a result that could possibly be due to the fact that growing firms tend to possess goodwill when they use acquisitions to expand. Results obtained when using returns to test whether goodwill amortisation is value relevant therefore extend the existing literature, since the prevailing expectation in the accounting literature is that goodwill amortization either represents a reduction in the value of goodwill over time or is not value relevant.

<p>Thomas Pynchon’s <em>V.</em> is often criticized for its preoccupation with meaninglessness and the  inability to make sense of ‘who’ or ‘what’ <em>V</em>. is about. The failure to make sense of <em>V</em>. is thematized within the novel particularly during the sacred moments or epiphanies which critics describe as ‘bizarre’, ‘disturbing’ or ‘unsettling’. These sacred moments raise issues that cannot be answered by traditional tools. Yet, critics and readers have responded to the novel with readings that reinscribe conventional modes of making sense and show a resistance to the inadequacy of traditional tools. This dissertation examines how Pynchon undermines modernist notions of the sacred moment as “moments of vision” which yield a higher knowledge or revelation. I argue that the sacred moments in <em>V</em>. allude to George Bataille’s notion of waste within a restricted and general economy. The violence of the sacred moments in <em>V</em>. are examined in relation to waste, sacrifice, the erotic, the inanimate, sovereignty and laughter. I conclude that rather than bringing about death, entropy and apocalyptic endings, the epiphanies’ violence and wasteful expenditure reveal the power structures at work in the literary use of the sacred. Paradoxically, the necessary existence of wasteful expenditure increases sense-making and offers the critic/reader the possibility of confronting waste, “the accursed share”.</p>

<p>Bakgrund: Från och med den 10 mars 2000 är det tillåtet för publika svenska börsföretag att handla i egna aktier. Det är intressant att belysa hur möjligheten att återköpa aktier uppfattas i Sverige. </p><p>Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att klargöra hur möjligheten att återköpa egna aktier påverkar ledningen och aktieägarna i ett aktiebolag. </p><p>Genomförande: Vi har studerat artiklar och litteratur om ämnet återköp. Besöksintervjuer har genomförts på Assa Abloy, Electrolux, Investor, Skanska, Robur Kapitalförvaltning och Handelsbanken Markets. En kombinerad telefon- och e-mailintervju har genomförts med Finansinspektionen. </p><p>Resultat: Det anses positivt att återköp av egna aktier nu är möjligt i Sverige. De främsta motiven till ett återköp är att hantera ett bolags kapitalstruktur och att använda aktierna för att hantera optionsprogram. Återköp anses som ett flexiblare instrument än inlösen och kompletterar utdelningen. Några större risker för missbruk anses det inte föreligga.</p>

Bakgrund: Från och med den 10 mars 2000 är det tillåtet för publika svenska börsföretag att handla i egna aktier. Det är intressant att belysa hur möjligheten att återköpa aktier uppfattas i Sverige. Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att klargöra hur möjligheten att återköpa egna aktier påverkar ledningen och aktieägarna i ett aktiebolag. Genomförande: Vi har studerat artiklar och litteratur om ämnet återköp. Besöksintervjuer har genomförts på Assa Abloy, Electrolux, Investor, Skanska, Robur Kapitalförvaltning och Handelsbanken Markets. En kombinerad telefon- och e-mailintervju har genomförts med Finansinspektionen. Resultat: Det anses positivt att återköp av egna aktier nu är möjligt i Sverige. De främsta motiven till ett återköp är att hantera ett bolags kapitalstruktur och att använda aktierna för att hantera optionsprogram. Återköp anses som ett flexiblare instrument än inlösen och kompletterar utdelningen. Några större risker för missbruk anses det inte föreligga.