Interdependence of Emerging Eastern European stock markets

One of the main developments in the global economy during the past decades has been the growth of emerging economies. Projections for their long-term growth, changes in the investment climate, corporate transparency and demography point to an increasing role for these emerging economies in the global economy. Today, emerging economies are usually considered as financial markets offering opportunities for high returns, good risk diversification and improved return-to-risk ratios. However, researchers have noted that these advantages may be in decline because of the increasing market integration. Nevertheless, it is likely that certain financial markets and specific sectors will remain partially segmented and somewhat insulated from the global economy for the year to come. This doctoral dissertation investigates several stock markets in Emerging Eastern Europe (EEE), including the ones in Russia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Slovenia. The objective is to analyze the returns and financial risks in these emerging markets from international investor’s point of view. This study also examines the segmentation/integration of these financial markets and the possibilities to diversify and hedge financial risk. The dissertation is divided into two parts. The first includes a review of the theoretical background for the articles and a review of the literature on EEE stock markets. It includes an overview of the methodology and research design applied in the analysis and a summary of articles from the second part of this dissertation and their main findings. The second part consists of four research publications. This work contributes to studies on emerging stock markets in four ways. First, it adds to the body of research on the pricing of risk, providing new empirical evidence about partial stock market segmentation in EEE. The results suggest that the aggregate emerging market risk is a relevant driver for stock market returns and that this market risk can be used to price financial instruments and forecast their performance. Second, it contributes to the empirical research on the integration of stock markets, asset prices and exchange rates by identifying the relationships between these markets through volatility and asset pricing. The results show that certain sectors of stock markets in EEE are not as integrated as others. For example, the Polish consumer goods sector, the Hungarian telecommunications sector, and the Czech financial sector are somewhat isolated from their counterparts elsewhere in Europe. Nevertheless, an analysis of the impact of EU accession in 2004 on stock markets suggests that most of the EEE markets are becoming increasingly integrated with the global markets. Third, this thesis complements the scientific literature in the field of shock and volatility spillovers by examining the mechanism of spillover distribution among the EU and EEE countries. The results illustrate that spillovers in emerging markets are mostly from a foreign exchange to the stock markets. Moreover, the results show that the effects of external shocks on stock markets have increased after the enlargement of the EU in 2004. Finally, this study is unique because it analyzes the effects of foreign macroeconomic news on geographically closely related countries. The results suggest that the effects of macroeconomic announcements on volatility are significant and have effect that varies across markets and their sectors. Moreover, the results show that the foreign macroeconomic news releases, somewhat surprisingly, have a greater effect on the EEE markets than the local macroeconomic news. This dissertation has a number of implications for the industry and for practitioners. It analyses financial risk associated with investing in Emerging Eastern Europe. Investors may use this information to construct and optimize investment portfolios. Moreover, this dissertation provides insights for investors and portfolio managers considering asset allocation to protect value or obtain higher returns. The results have also implications for asset pricing and portfolio selection in light of macroeconomic news releases.

Capital Structure and Firm Growth: R&D Intensive Companies

The purpose of this study is to examine and explain firm`s growth impact on capital structure decision-making in research and development intensive companies. Many studies claim that R&D has a pivotal impact on capital structure decisions, but corporate finance theories have often failed to explain these observed patterns. As sales growth is an important concept and objective for R&D firms, it is logical to assume that it plays a vital role in capital structure decisions. This study applies nomothetic research approach. The theoretical part employs a formal conceptual analysis in order to develop the propositions that are tested with empirical data. The empirical part consists of the analysis of three companies; the data is obtained from the annual reports over the period 2003 – 2008. The companies operate in IT- or ICT-industry and are publicly listed. The method for analyzing the case data is based on the financial indicators, which are obtained from the financials of the case companies. These economic indicators describe the capital structure and the financial decision-making of the firms. The method relates to the quantitative studies. Yet, this study extends the analysis beyond the indicators. Specifically, this study addresses the question of what is behind the economic indicators, therefore combining aspects of quantitative and qualitative analysis. The firms examined in this study seem to prefer internal finance during growth. However, external finance seems to be a catalyst for sales growth. Firms strongly prefer equity financing. In growth, the use of equity per capital either increases or stays in a constant level. Over the period 2003 – 2008, the firms were often associated to equity related transactions and short-term debt. Short-term debt was used as a substitute of long-term debt and equity. The case firms also adjusted their capital structure – these adjustments were carried out with short-term debt or equity. The case data also provides implications for the growth signal theory that was developed in this study. Based on the econometric indicators, arguments can be made that equity investors are `attracted` to growing R&D firms. This is because growth helps investors perceive the true type of firm. The findings of this study are best explained by the trade-off theory and the pecking order theory. These corporate finance theories are considered as mainstream. Little support can be found to the implications of the signaling theory and market timing theory.

Benefits of sales force automation to salespeople and to their customers in business-to-business markets

This study applied qualitative case study method for solving what kind of benefits salespeople and their customers perceived to gain when sales reps used a specific sales force automation tool, that defined the values and identified segment that best fit to each customer. The data consisting of four interviews was collected using semi-structured individual method and analyzed with thematic analysis technique. The analysis revealed five salespeople perceived benefits and four customer perceived benefits. Salespeople perceived benefits were improvements in customer knowledge, guidance of sales operations, salesperson-customer relationship building, time management and growing performance. Customer perceived benefits were information transmission, improved customer service, customer-salesperson relationship building and development of operations, which of the last was found as a new previously unrecognized customer benefit.

New ways to do business plans in multicultural organizations

Business plans are made when establishing new company or when organizations launch new product or services. In this Master Thesis was examined the elements are included in the business plan and emphasized. Business plan is a wide document and can also contain company specific information, the literature review was restricted into three areas which were investigated from the relating literature and articles. The selected areas were Market Segmentation and Targeting, Competitive Environment, and Market Positioning and Strategy. The different business plan models were investigated by interviewing companies who operates in a different industry sectors from each other’s. The models were compared to each other and to the findings from literature. Based on interview results and literature findings, the business plan for fibre based packaging. The created business plan contains three selected areas. It was found that the selected business plan elements can be found from the interviewed companies’ business plans. The market segmentation was done by comparing the market share to known total market size. When analyzing the competitive environment, there was no one selected model in use. The tools to evaluate competitive environment was selected parts from both SWOT analysis and Porter’s five forces model in applicable part. Based on interview results, it can be state that the company or organization should find and built its own model for business plans. In order to receive the benefits for future planning, the company should use the same model for long time.

Utilization of multi-branding in business to business markets

Case company utilizes multi-branding strategy (or house of brands strategy) in its product portfolio. In practice the company has multiple brands – one main brand and four acquired brands – which all utilize one single product platform. The objective of this research is to analyze case company’s multi-branding strategy and its benefits and challenges. Moreover, the purpose is to clarify that how could a company in B2B markets utilize multi-branding strategy more efficiently and profitably. The theoretical part of this thesis consists of aspects of branding strategies; different brand name architectures, benefits and challenges of different strategies and different ways of utilize branding strategies in mergers and acquisitions. The empirical part, on the other hand, includes the description of the case company’s branding strategy and the employees’ perspective on the benefits and challenges of multi-branding strategy, and how to utilize it more efficiently and profitably. This study shows, that the major benefits of utilizing multi-branding are lower production costs, ability to reach wider market coverage, possibility to utilize common sales tools, synergies in R&D and shared resources. On the other hand, the major challenges are lack of product differentiation, internal competition, branding issues in production and deliveries, pricing issues and conflicts, and compromises in product compatibility and suitability. Based on the results, several ways to utilize multi-branding strategy more efficiently and profitably were found; by putting more effort on brand image and product differentiation, by having more co-operation among the brands and by focusing on more precise customer and market segmentation.

Informalidade no mercado de trabalho brasileiro: uma resenha da literatura

The economic literature relative to Brazilian labor market informality is very disperse and presents a significant lack of organization. In that sense, the purpose of this paper is to organize and discuss on a systematic way the main pieces of literature concerning informality in the Brazilian labor market using, whenever it is possible, the international literature as a comparison point for the existing results relative to Brazil's experience. More specifically, questions related to wage differentials between formal and informal workers, labor market segmentation and the effect of institutions on the informal sector are emphasized.

Psychographic characteristics of weekend wine tourists : a multiple case study of four wineries in the Niagara Region

The purpose of this study is to examine the psychographic (product attributes, motivation opinions, interest, lifestyle, values) characteristics of wine tourists along the Niagara wine r,~ute, located in Ontario, Canada, using a multiple case study method. Four wineries were selected, two wineries each on the East, and West sides of the wine route during the shoulder-season (January, February, 2004). Using a computer generated survey technique, tourists were approached to fill out a questionnaire on one of the available laptop computers, where a sample ofN=321 was obtained. The study findings revealed that there are three distinct wine tourist segments in the Niagara region. The segments were determined using an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a K-means cluster analysis: Wine Lovers, Wine Interested, and Wine Curious wine tourists. These three segments displayed significant differences in their, motivation for visiting a winery, lifestyles, values, and wine purchasing behaviour. This study also examined differences between winery locations, on the East and West sides of the Niagara wine route, with respect to the aforementioned variables. The results indicated that there were significant differences between the regions with respect to these variables. The findings suggest that these differences present opportunities for more effective marketing strategies based on the uniqueness of each region. The results of this study provide insight for academia into a method of psychographic market segmentation of wine tourists and consumer behaviour. This study also contributes to the literature on wine tourism, and the identification of psychographic characteristics of wine tourists, an area where little research has taken place.

Matriz de marco lógico Municipio Mesitas de el Colegio para la comercialización del mango

Este documento es el la primera parte del proyecto de Municipio saludable y polo de desarrollo local en la fase de Matriz de Marco Lógico, para el municipio de Mesitas del Colegio. Busca encontrar soluciones al problema de comercialización de mango que existe en los productores de la región, a través del uso de la metodología de marco lógico. Luego de realizar un análisis profundo, se encontró, que: la falla principal, es la inexistencia de un modelo de comercialización, lo cual implica un desconocimiento de los canales de distribución, los agentes que intervienen en este proceso y otros aspectos técnicos que impiden el crecimiento de la asociación y de los productores. Debido a esto, a través del proyecto se plantea, que: lo más importante para solucionar este problema, es crear un modelo de comercialización de mango, que permita mejorar el precio de venta del producto, conocer su costo de producción, aumentar la rentabilidad que se obtiene por la venta de este y generar un poder de negociación por medio del posicionamiento de marca de la Asociación. Para llevar a cabo, este proyecto, es necesario que se integren los productores de mago a la Asociación y que exista compromiso por parte de los integrantes, lo cual mejorará el poder de negociación en el mercado. Finalmente queda el proyecto en poder de los productores, la asociación y el gobierno, para que ellos realicen las diferentes actividades propuestas y logren cumplir con los objetivos aquí planteados.

Cambios en los retornos de la educación en Bogotá entre 1997 y 2003

Se estima la tasa de retorno de la educación en Bogotá para 1997 y 2003 por medio de la metodología de Heckman. Se encuentra que los retornos de la educación y de la experiencia potencial son menores en 2003. El ingreso laboral promedio también disminuye.

La Ley de Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones (L1341/09). Actualización de un marco legal para un sector en constante evolución

La necesidad de preparar al sector de tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones para hacer frente a los desafíos que trae consigo el desarrollo de la convergencia en todas sus dimensiones, implicaba plantear un nuevo equilibrio entre la promoción del desarrollo competitivo del sector y el cumplimiento de los compromisos sociales de cobertura derivados de la naturaleza de servicio público que ostentan las telecomunicaciones. En consecuencia, desde comienzos de 2007 se trabajó, con una permanente retroalimentación intragubernamental y sectorial, en la estructuración de los pilares del Proyecto de Ley 112/07 Cámara - 340/08 Senado, que culminó en la sanción presidencial de la Ley 1341 el30 de julio de 2009. Este nuevo marco legal para un sector en constante evolución constituye un hito sin precedentes, que rompe con la tradición de más de diez años y seis intentos fallidos de ajuste legislativo e institucional.

Klapcast

Es una plataforma de doble lado que tiene como objetivo fundamental acercar a los buscadores de talento de una forma eficaz y precisa a los actores. Esta propuesta empresarial quiere mejorar las condiciones laborales de estos últimos mediante la tecnología disponible y un know know digital. Así mismo, generar el primer banco consolidado de talentos del país y contribuir a la solidificación de un segmento cultural.

A dwelling-level investigation into the physical and socio-economic drivers of domestic energy consumption in England

The UK Government's Department for Energy and Climate Change has been investigating the feasibility of developing a national energy efficiency data framework covering both domestic and non-domestic buildings. Working closely with the Energy Saving Trust and energy suppliers, the aim is to develop a data framework to monitor changes in energy efficiency, develop and evaluate programmes and improve information available to consumers. Key applications of the framework are to understand trends in built stock energy use, identify drivers and evaluate the success of different policies. For energy suppliers, it could identify what energy uses are growing, in which sectors and why. This would help with market segmentation and the design of products. For building professionals, it could supplement energy audits and modelling of end-use consumption with real data and support the generation of accurate and comprehensive benchmarks. This paper critically examines the results of the first phase of work to construct a national energy efficiency data-framework for the domestic sector focusing on two specific issues: (a) drivers of domestic energy consumption in terms of the physical nature of the dwellings and socio-economic characteristics of occupants and (b) the impact of energy efficiency measures on energy consumption.

Consumers' attitudes, trust and willingness to pay for food information

Market failure can be corrected using different regulatory approaches ranging from high to low intervention. Recently, classic regulations have been criticized as costly and economically irrational and thus policy makers are giving more consideration to soft regulatory techniques such as information remedies. However, despite the plethora of food information conveyed by different media there appears to be a lack of studies exploring how consumers evaluate this information and how trust towards publishers influence their choices for food information. In order to fill such a gap, this study investigates questions related to topics which are more relevant to consumers, who should disseminate trustful food information, and how communication should be conveyed and segmented. Primary data were collected both through qualitative (in depth interviews and focus groups) and quantitative research (web and mail surveys). Attitudes, willingness to pay for food information and trust towards public and private sources conveying information through a new food magazine were assessed using both multivariate statistical methods and econometric analysis. The study shows that consumer attitudes towards food information topics can be summarized along three cognitive-affective dimensions: the agro-food system, enjoyment and wellness. Information related to health risks caused by nutritional disorders and food safety issues caused by bacteria and chemical substances is the most important for about 90% of respondents. Food information related to regulations and traditions is also considered important for more than two thirds of respondents, while information about food production and processing techniques, life style and food fads are considered less important by the majority of respondents. Trust towards food information disseminated by public bodies is higher than that observed for private bodies. This behavior directly affects willingness to pay (WTP) for food information provided by public and private publishers when markets are shocked by a food safety incident. WTP for consumer association (€ 1.80) and the European Food Safety Authority (€ 1.30) are higher than WTP for the independent and food industry publishers which cluster around zero euro. Furthermore, trust towards the type of publisher also plays a key role in food information market segmentation together with socio-demographic and economic variables such as gender, age, presence of children and income. These findings invite policy makers to reflect on the possibility of using information remedies conveyed using trusted sources of information to specific segments of consumers as an interesting soft alternative to the classic way of regulating modern food markets.

The role of index trading in price formation in the grains and oilseeds markets

We use both Granger-causality and instrumental variables (IV) methods to examine the impact of index fund positions on price returns for the main US grains and oilseed futures markets. Our analysis supports earlier conclusions that Granger-causal impacts are generally not discernible. However, market microstructure theory suggests trading impacts should be instantaneous. IV-based tests for contemporaneous causality provide stronger evidence of price impact. We find even stronger evidence that changes in index positions can help predict future changes in aggregate commodity price indices. This result suggests that changes in index investment are in part driven by information which predicts commodity price changes over the coming months.

Lançamento de DRs por empresas brasileiras no mercado norte-americano : valorização de mercado, volatilidade e performance ajustada ao risco

O lançamento de DRs (Recibos de Depósitos) por empresas brasileiras é um mecanismo que possibilita às empresas terem acesso a mercados de capitais maiores e mais líquidos, podendo servir como um instrumento para o aumento de suas visibilidades no exterior e como um possível redutor de seus custos de capital. Esta pesquisa verifica os reflexos ocorridos nas ações das empresas brasileiras que lançaram mão deste instrumento no que tange a suas valorizações de mercado, suas volatilidades e suas performances ajustadas ao risco. De uma forma geral, apesar de pouco significativos estatisticamente, os resultados encontrados para as empresas brasileiras parecem ser condizentes com a hipótese de que a negociação internacional dos papéis dessas companhias ajudam a reduzir os efeitos da segmentação de mercado em suas ações, estando associados a ajustes para cima em seus preços, e para baixo, em seus retornos esperados e em suas volatilidades, para todos os tipos de DRs brasileiros negociados no mercado norte-americano, à exceção dos DRs de nível III que, de uma forma não significativa, parecem se comportar como se fossem emissões sazonais de capitais tradicionais (seasoned equity offerings).