The role of information is central to the study of corporate finance. In the real world where one party usually has more and better information, information asymmetry forms the basis of analysis in many key aspects of modern economics including contract theory and principle-agent problems. Although technology facilitates information flow, information continues to play an important role because we live in an environment in which there is more information and information that is more complex. Moreover, we are experiencing a fundamental shift towards a knowledge-based economy in which ideas and concepts, both in the form of information, gain importance. This thesis examines the role of information as we make this transition in two separate settings: First in a “real impact” setting where knowledge generated at leading research universities spills over into firms nearby, and second, in a "traditional market" setting where analysts help disseminate information. In the post-industrial economy of the 21st century, innovation is the engine of economic growth. As a result, we increasingly value human capital and knowledge. Chapter 2 looks at the location of firms relative to knowledge centers and its impact on stock volatility. I argue that knowledge spillovers foster firm R&D and find supporting evidence. My evidence is consistent with the classic models on the impact of human capital on economic growth (Nelson and Phelps, 1966). Chapter 3 examines the impact of knowledge and innovation on firms’ cash management policies. Bates, Kahle, and Stulz (2009) find that the average cash-to-assets ratio for firms more than doubles in the past decades and attribute it to changing firm characteristics. I identify innovation as a driving force behind these changes, resulting in firms holding more cash as a precaution. In Chapter 4, I study the investment value of information from analysts, or more specifically, analyst target prices. Due to potential conflicts of interest problems, the value that analysts provide to investors remains controversial. Moreover, since the information age is characterized by information overload, it is harder for investors to identify relevant information. I find that institutions trade in the same direction as the consensus target price movement. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2012-03-07 14:20:20.178

Abstract The relationship between dividend buying and stock volatility is the subject of our research. It focuses on all the listed companies on the Swedish stock market, with a particular emphasis on dividend buying and the impact of stock volatility on the underlying stocks of the indices in our sample. As a result of the problem being discussed, the following research question was posed: What is the relationship between dividend buying and stock volatility? From this question, we investigate the impact of dividend buying on the 'dividend – stock volatility' and contribute to this body of knowledge. We want to see if the average stock volatility between the announcement day and the record date indicates dividend buying compared to the average monthly/weekly volatility during the fiscal year. We applied a theoretical framework that is based mostly on financial and behavioral theories in addressing dividends, stock returns, stock volatility, dividend buying, and the relationship between them. Based on the theories we built up two hypotheses and followed deduction approach and quantitative research strategy for our research paper. The data source for this research study is the Thompson Reuters Eikon Database. Applying the screener function, we obtained all the dividend paying Swedish Public Companies for 5 years. In total they were 226. We carried out a multivariate multiple regression using 5-year historical securities price data from the Swedish stock market. Our variables were Beta and Standard Deviation of prices as dependent variables and dividend yields as the independent variable. We also checked the respective companies' debt-equity ratio and market caps. After controlling the variables market cap and debt-equity ratio, the results were significant for 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017 but insignificant for 2014. However, there was a significant negative correlation between dividend yield and beta in all years. This yields an inconclusive result that necessitates further research. As a result, we conclude that dividend buying (dividend yield), and stock volatility have a negative relationship when considering both standard deviation and beta as indicators of volatility. This study's findings partially support evidence from Baskin's (1989) research study, which found a significant positive relationship between stock price volatility and dividend yield. Furthermore, the findings of the study back up Allen and Rachim's (1996) results, which revealed that stock price volatility and dividend yield are unrelated. According to the findings of this research study, the dividend yield has the greatest impact on stock price volatility, as measured by standard deviation, i.e., the unsystematic risk among predictor variables.

Board gender diversity has been on the corporate agenda for several years, despite numerous gender diversity initiatives around the EU-Member States, women remain underrepresented in the boardroom. There is an intense debate and the problem is frequently raised and discussed by politicians, journalists, shareholders and investors. The thesis examines if gender diversity in the boardroom has any significant effects on firm performance and stock volatility based on 318 firm-year observations with firms listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, Copenhagen Stock Exchange and Helsinki Stock Exchange from 2013 to 2015. The authors find no significant relationship between gender diversified board and firm performance for the overall sample at any conventional level. However, the authors find a positive and statistically significant relationship between gender diversified board and firm performance for only Swedish firms, measured by Tobin’s q. Furthermore, the empirical findings from the relationship between board gender diversity and stock volatility using 1 272 firm-quarter observations, are statistical significant and shows that firms with high gender diversified board have lower stock volatility compared to firms with low gender diversified board.

Nowadays, the value creation and measurement of the economic performances have changed from traditional ways of maximizing shareholder’s wealth to maximizing stakeholder’s wealth. Companies are responsible for creating value not only for their organizationsbut also for the society as a whole because CSR issues attract a global attention and most countries are urging the companies to follow sustainable ways. In Nordic countries, Sweden is well known as a pioneer for sustainability and all the CSR activities aredisclosed in Sustainability or CSR reports. Although there are many researches related to the impacts of sustainability reporting and CSR performance on firm’s growth or financial performance, a research examining the relationship between CSR performance and stock price volatility of the companies cannot be found. Therefore, we aim to investigate the impact of the residual sustainability which is one of the dimensions to measure sustainability, on stock behaviorsand formulated the research question:What is the impact of Residual Sustainability on stock behaviors?The purpose of the thesis is to find out how residual sustainability is allocated in terms of monetary value, and whether this allocation of resources creates value for the shareholders or not. This leads to investigate the stock price volatility against the size of residual sustainability of the companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm. In adopting research methodology, we followed functionalist paradigm through the assumptions: regulatory side undersociology, objectivism under ontology, positivism under epistemology, and positivism under axiologybecause we consider that companies are rational entities and aim to provide rational explanation of whether residual sustainability haspossible impacts to stock behaviors or not. We answered the research question by adopting deductive approach. Based on exploratory and explanatory research, we designed archival research method to perform quantitative analysis in a cross-sectional study. We developed our theoretical framework based on Sustainable Enterprise Theory, Legitimacy Theory, Shareholder Theory, Stakeholder Theory and Resource-based view Theory and the analysis was conducted and discussed by relating with those theories. We extracted the data from EikonDataStream for years 2015, 2016 and 2017. We used different statistical methods to test normality of our variables, and run the tests with multilinear regression model to address our research question. The result indicates that there is no statistically significant relationship between residual sustainability and stock behaviorswithin the specific time frame. The possible reason is that the stock price is well adjusted before creating stock volatility because the sustainability in Sweden is likely to be predicted for the future. Secondly, most of the Swedish companies are fully utilized the residual fund for innovation, talent retention, research and development and other purposes and thereby it may create delay adjustment on stock price until value creation for organizationis generated.

With the surge of Internet-based corporate communication, organization, andinformation management, financial markets have undergone radical transformation. Inthe interconnected economy of today, market participants are forced to acceptcyberattacks, data breaches, system failures, or security flaws as any other (varying)cost of doing business. While cyberspace encompasses practically any firm indeveloped economies and a large portion in developing ones, combatting such risks isdeemed a question of firm-specific responsibility: the situation resembles an ‘every manfor himself’ scenario. Consulting standard financial theory, rational utility-maximizinginvestors assume firm-specific (idiosyncratic) risk under expectations of additionalcompensation for shouldering such risk – they are economically incentivized. The omnipresence of cyberattacks challenges fundamental assumptions of the CapitalAsset Pricing Model, Optimal Portfolio Theory, and the concept of diversifiability. Thethesis problematizes underlying rationality notions by investigating the effect of acyberattack on stock volatility. Explicitly, the use of stock volatility as a proxy for riskallows for linking increased volatility to higher risk premiums and increased cost ofcapital. In essence, we investigate the following research question: What is the effect ofa disclosed cyberattack on stock volatility for firms listed in the USA?. Using event study methodology, we compile a cyberattack database for events between2010 and 2015 involving 115 firms listed on US stock exchanges. The specified timeperiod cover prevailing research gaps; due to literature paucity the focus on volatilityfits well. For a finalized sample of 189 events, stock return data is matched to S&P500index return data within a pre-event estimation window and a post-event window tocalculate abnormal returns using the market model. The outputs are used to estimateabnormal return volatility before and after each event; testing pre and post volatilityagainst each other in significance tests then approximates the event-induced volatility.Identical procedures are performed for all subsamples based on time horizon, industrybelonging, attack type, firm size, and perpetrator motivation. The principal hypothesis, that stock volatility is significantly higher after a cyberattack,is found to hold within both event windows. Evidence on firm-specific characteristics ismore inconclusive. In the long run, inaccessibility and attacks on smaller firms seem torender significantly larger increases in volatility compared to intrusion and attacks onlarger firms; supporting preexisting literature. Contrastingly, perpetrator motive appearsirrelevant. Generally, stocks are more volatile immediately after an attack, attributableto information asymmetry. For most subsamples volatility seem to diminish with time,following the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Summing up, disparate results raisequestions of the relative importance of contingency factors, and also about futuredevelopments within and outside academic research.

Financial Derivatives are one of the most popular and emerging innovations in the field of financial engineering. Since their inception, there has been a phenomenal growth in the volumes of derivatives traded all over the world. Financial markets are known to be extremely volatile and derivatives provide a way of eliminating or reducing the risks involved in these markets. Since these instruments derive their value from some underlying asset, trading in these instruments is bound to affect the underlying assets. Thus it becomes important to examine what these effects are and whether they have been favourable or detrimental to the underlying stock markets specially when there has been an explosive growth of these financial derivatives all over the world. This issue gains more importance in the case of emerging markets like India as they try to be more competitive and efficient as the developed Western markets. This thesis mainly deals with looking at this impact on the Indian stock markets. The Indian markets still being very new in this area, not many studies have been reported here related to this issue. The main focus of this thesis is to provide some more evidence on the impact of one kind of derivative instrument, namely options on different characteristics of underlying stocks in the Indian stock market. The thesis has the following objectives: • To examine the impact of option introduction on the price of underlying stocks in National Stock Exchange (NSE). • To examine the impact of option introduction on the volatility of underlying stocks in NSE • To examine the impact of option introduction on liquidity of underlying stocks in NSE NSE introduced derivatives beginning with index futures on June 12, 2000, followed by index options on June 4, 2001, options on individual securities on July 2, 2001 and finally futures on individual securities on November 9, 2001. Due to the temporal proximity of the introduction of index options and individual options, there exists a possibility of an interaction of these two effects. This problem is solved by a judiciously chosen sampling design. In particular, three groups of stocks are considered. The first group consists of stocks on which options were first introduced on 2nd July 2001 and thus would exhibit a combined effect of the two events if any. The second group consists of stocks on which options were introduced much later and therefore would show effects of individual option introduction if any. The third group comprises of nonoptioned stocks whose returns are considered around the date of index option introduction and thus would show effects of index option alone if any. To separate the two effects an ANOVA/ Logistic Regression model is used. An objective selection of the event and estimation windows is done using a Bayesian Change Point Analysis. The first part of the thesis looks at the effect of option introduction on the price of underlying stocks. A standard event study methodology as has been used in the literature is employed for this purpose. The study does not find any significant effect of option introduction on the prices. The second part of the thesis deals with the effect on volatility. Volatility is measured as the risk of a stock and as is done in the literature, three kinds of risk are looked at: total risk, systematic risk and the unsystematic risk. In case of the total risk, an F-test and an Ansari Bradley test is used to check for changes in the variance and scale parameters of market-adjusted continuously compounded returns of the stocks before and after option introduction. The results of these tests are recorded as a categorical variable taking on the value 0 for no change and 1 for a change and a Binomial Logistic Regression is used to separate the effects of the two events. Furthermore, after recording the results of the above mentioned tests as a categorical variable with three categories (0, 1, -1), a Multinomial Logistic Regression is also used in order to estimate the direction of the change (increase, decrease or no change). The ratios of after to before total risks are also analyzed using an ANOVA model. The systematic risk is measured using three kinds of betas – OLS betas, Scholes-Williams betas and Fowler-Rorke betas. The differences in the before and after betas of every stock are modelled using an ANOVA model in order to separate the two effects as well as the interaction effect. The unsystematic risk is estimated by the conditional variances and the unconditional variances of ARMA and ARMA-GARCH models fitted to market model excess returns. The ANOVA model is used here as well. In addition to this, the before and after ARCH and GARCH coefficients of GARCH (1, 1) models fitted to the excess returns are also compared using the ANOVA model. The results indicate that individual options are leading to a decline in total risk however index options are causing an increase in total risk. The interaction effect is significant in this case thereby causing an increase in total risk in the Group I stocks. The OLS betas indicate that individual option introduction seems to have increased the systematic risk. The Scholes-Williams betas indicate that index option introduction seems to have increased the systematic risk. The Fowler Rorke betas on the other hand, do not show any significant impact of individual option or index option introduction. For all the three betas index options introduction seems to have no effect on the systematic risk. Though the interaction effect seems to be significant in all the three cases, it however does not significantly affect the systematic risk in Group I stocks. As regards the unsystematic risk, both the conditional and unconditional variances of ARMA models show a significant reduction for individual option introduction but index options do not have any significant impact on either one of these measures. In case of unconditional variances of ARMA-GARCH models, none of the effects come out as significant. While comparing the news and persistence coefficients of GARCH (1, 1) models, the news coefficients indicate that the due to index option introduction, stocks are becoming more efficient in terms of absorbing the news more rapidly. No significant effect of either event is found on the persistence coefficients. The last part of the thesis deals with the liquidity issue. Liquidity has been measured using two measures – relative volume (based on daily data) and implicit bid-ask spread given by Roll (1984) (calculated from intra-day data). In case of the liquidity measures, the Logistic Regression models are used i.e. a categorical variable with two or three categories obtained from the results of a Wilcoxon Rank Sum test for comparing the median volume and spread before and after option introduction, is used. It is found that for the relative volume, individual option introduction has led to a favourable effect in terms of increasing the volume post introduction of options; however index options seem to have had a negative effect. As for the spread, index options seem to have had a stabilizing influence on the underlying stocks than the individual options.

Submitted by Eduardo Augusto Aun (auneduardo@gmail.com) on 2013-01-16T19:48:06Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO EDUARDO A AUN 2012 MPFE FGV.pdf: 1487732 bytes, checksum: 0fa68b5193a17357238c3ff083146e3d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Eliene Soares da Silva (eliene.silva@fgv.br) on 2013-01-16T19:49:13Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO EDUARDO A AUN 2012 MPFE FGV.pdf: 1487732 bytes, checksum: 0fa68b5193a17357238c3ff083146e3d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-01-16T19:55:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISSERTAÇÃO EDUARDO A AUN 2012 MPFE FGV.pdf: 1487732 bytes, checksum: 0fa68b5193a17357238c3ff083146e3d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-12-18 / Este estudo compara previsões de volatilidade de sete ações negociadas na Bovespa usando 02 diferentes modelos de volatilidade realizada e 03 de volatilidade condicional. A intenção é encontrar evidências empíricas quanto à diferença de resultados que são alcançados quando se usa modelos de volatilidade realizada e de volatilidade condicional para prever a volatilidade de ações no Brasil. O período analisado vai de 01 de Novembro de 2007 a 30 de Março de 2011. A amostra inclui dados intradiários de 5 minutos. Os estimadores de volatilidade realizada que serão considerados neste estudo são o Bi-Power Variation (BPVar), desenvolvido por Barndorff-Nielsen e Shephard (2004b), e o Realized Outlyingness Weighted Variation (ROWVar), proposto por Boudt, Croux e Laurent (2008a). Ambos são estimadores não paramétricos, e são robustos a jumps. As previsões de volatilidade realizada foram feitas através de modelos autoregressivos estimados para cada ação sobre as séries de volatilidade estimadas. Os modelos de variância condicional considerados aqui serão o GARCH(1,1), o GJR (1,1), que tem assimetrias em sua construção, e o FIGARCH-CHUNG (1,d,1), que tem memória longa. A amostra foi divida em duas; uma para o período de estimação de 01 de Novembro de 2007 a 30 de Dezembro de 2010 (779 dias de negociação) e uma para o período de validação de 03 de Janeiro de 2011 a 31 de Março de 2011 (61 dias de negociação). As previsões fora da amostra foram feitas para 1 dia a frente, e os modelos foram reestimados a cada passo, incluindo uma variável a mais na amostra depois de cada previsão. As previsões serão comparadas através do teste Diebold-Mariano e através de regressões da variância ex-post contra uma constante e a previsão. Além disto, o estudo também apresentará algumas estatísticas descritivas sobre as séries de volatilidade estimadas e sobre os erros de previsão. / This study compares volatility forecasts of seven publicly traded companies using 2 different models of realized volatility and 3 models of conditional volatility. The intention is to find empirical evidence as to the difference in results that are achieved when using models of realized volatility and conditional volatility to predict the volatility of shares in Brazil. The sample period runs from 1 November 2007 to 30 March 2011. The sample includes 5 minutes intraday data. The realized volatility estimators that are considered in this study are the Bi-Power Variation (BPVar) developed by Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard (2004b), and Weighted Realized Outlyingness Variation (ROWVar) proposed by Boudt, Croux and Laurent (2008a) . Both estimators are non-parametric, and are robust to jumps. The realized volatility forecasts were made by autoregressive models estimated for each share on the estimated volatility series. The conditional variance models considered here are the GARCH (1,1), the GJR (1,1), having asymmetries in its construction, and FIGARCH-CHUNG (1, d 1), having long memory. The sample was divided into two, one for the estimation period from 01 November 2007 to 30 December 2010 (779 trading days) and one for the validation period of 03 January 2011 to 31 March 2011 (61 trading days). The out of sample forecasts were made to 1 day ahead, and the models were reestimated at each step, including one more variable in the sample after each prediction. The predictions will be compared using the Diebold-Mariano test and through regressions of the variance ex-post against a constant and the prediction. Moreover, the study also shows some descriptive statistics on the estimated volatility series and on the forecasting errors.

Abstract Title: Direct and indirect effect of notes – for actors in a stock market Background: Notes make up a significant part of the company´s annual report, but does this information have any major impact? On one side, notes should lead to less information asymmetry, which positively affects the stock market and financial analysts forecasting precision as well as this relationship depends on different contexts. The question is also asked if all information presented in the notes is too extensive, which creates information overload for financial analysts. Purpose: The purpose is to explain the effects of more information in accounting notes for actors in equity markets in different contexts that have the same accounting standard. Method: The study applies a cross-sectional design together with a deductive approach to investigate whether the amount of note information has a relationship with financial analysts forecasting precision, stock volatility and stock liquidity. For these relationships, moderating effects will also be tested. The hypotheses arose through theories of asymmetric information, effective market hypothesis, cognitive load theory and system-orientated theories. Conclusion: The study rejects the relationship between note information and errors in financial analyst forecast, stock volatility as well as stock liquidity. However, the results show a significant positive relationship between note information and error in forecasting precision. Financial analyst forecasting precision show that the relationship is affected by three different contexts. Despite the relationship between note information and stock liquidity were rejected when tested on the overall sample is the relationship affected by two different contexts. / Sammanfattning Titel: Direkta och indirekta effekter av noter - För aktörer på en aktiemarknad Bakgrund: Noter utgör en väsentlig del av företags årsredovisning men har den informationen någon större påverkan? På ena sidan bör noter leda till mindre informationsasymmetri, vilket påverkar aktiemarknaden och finansiella analytikers prognosprecision positivt samt att detta samband även beror på olika kontexter. Frågan ställs även ifall informationen som presenteras i notavsnittet är för omfattande, vilket skapar informationsöverbelastning för finansiella analytiker. Syfte: Syftet är att förklara effekten av ökad delgivande av information i redovisningsnoter på aktörer på aktiemarknaden i olika kontexter som tillämpar samma redovisningsstandard. Metod: Studien tillämpar en tvärrsnittsdesign tillsammans med en deduktiv ansats för att undersöka ifall mängden notinformation har något samband med finansiella analytikers prognosprecision, aktievolatilitet och aktielikviditet För dessa samband testas även modererande effekter. Hypoteserna uppstod genom teorierna asymmetrisk information, effektiva marknadshypotesen, kognitiv belastningsteori och systemorienterade teorier. Slutsats: Studien förkastar sambandet mellan notinformation och fel i prognosprecision, aktievolatilitet och aktielikviditet. Däremot visar resultatet ett positivt signifikant samband mellan notinformation och fel i prognosprecision. Finansiella analytikers prognosprecision uppvisar även att sambandet påverkas av tre olika kontexter. Trots att sambandet mellan notinformation och aktielikviditet förkastas när den testas på en övergripande nivå, påverkas sambandet av två olika kontexter.

Examensarbete, Civilekonomprogrammet, Ekonomihögskolan vid Linnéuniversitetet Författare: Gustav Johannesson och Martin Westport Handledare: Andreas Stephan Medbedömare: Anna Stafsudd Titel: Sambandet mellan Corporate Social Performance och finansiell risk - En kvantitativ studie som undersöker nordiska företag Bakgrund: Företags sociala ansvar har ständigt funnits på företagsagendan under senaste åren efter ökade globala utmaningar och större påtryckningar från intressenter. Man kan se allt större risker som är kopplade till företags hållbarhetsarbete. Med bakgrund till detta finns det ett stort intresse och en uppåtgående trend kring hållbara investeringar där Norden är ledande inom området. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att förklara sambandet mellan Corporate Social Performance, både på en sammanslagen och individuell nivå, och finansiell risk. Metod: Genom den deduktiva forskningsansatsen och den kvantitativa forskningsstrategin som är baserad på paneldata testar författarna sina hypoteser. Författarna bygger sina hypoteser på intressentteorin och riskhanteringsteorin som testas med ett nordiskt urval på 144 företag under tidsperioden 2002-2016. Slutsats: Studiens resultat visar att det finns ett negativt samband mellan Corporate Social Performance och finansiell risk. Det finns även ett negativt samband mellan företags sociala prestationer och finansiell risk. Detta är i linje med författarnas förväntningar. Däremot visar resultatet inga samband mellan företags miljömässiga och styrningsmässiga prestationer och deras finansiella risk. / Degree Project, The Business Administration and Economics Programme, School of Business and Economics at Linnaeus University Authors: Gustav Johannesson and Martin Westport Supervisor: Andreas Stephan Co-assessor: Anna Stafsudd Title: The relationship between Corporate Social Performance and Financial Risk - A quantitative study that examines Nordic companies Background: Corporate Social Responsibility has been on the corporate agenda in recent years following increased global challenges and greater pressure from stakeholders. One can see more risks associated with corporate sustainability. This has led to a great interest globally and an upward trend in Socially Responsible Investing where the Nordic region is at the leading edge. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to explain the relationship between Corporate Social Performance, both at a combined and an individual level, and financial risk. Method: Through the deductive research approach and the quantitative research strategy that is based on panel data, the authors test their hypotheses. The authors base their hypotheses on stakeholder theory and risk management theory and test them with a Nordic sample of 144 companies over the period 2002-2016. Conclusion: The study results show that there is a negative relationship between Corporate Social Performance and financial risk. There is also a negative relationship between social performance and financial risk. This is in line with the authors’ expectations. However, the results show no relationship between companies’ environmental and governance performance and their financial risk.