CORPORATE OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL STRUCTURES AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM CONTROL POTENTIAL, AGENCY, AND CONTROL DOMINANCE-CONTESTABILITY PERSPECTIVES ON UK LISTED FIRMS

CORPORATE OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL STRUCTURES AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM CONTROL POTENTIAL, AGENCY, AND CONTROL DOMINANCE-CONTESTABILITY PERSPECTIVES ON UK LISTED FIRMS BY: ABDELLA KORMIE DINGA MATERIAL ABSTRACT The research study comprises of two preceding Chapters, three main empirical Parts, and CONCLUSION. The first Chapter, Introduction, presents the overall research objectives and questions of the study based on the existing agency perspectives regarding the issues of control and governance conflicts in modern corporations. The second Chapter, Review of Theoretical Frameworks, presents a brief account of similarities and differences between the existing theoretical frameworks relevant to the control of corporations. The review identified that the agency theory provides powerful testable models and tools that can be used in the investigation of the agency conflicts and the possible solutions that mitigate the governance problems. The three empirical Chapters follow mainly the deductive research approach of making statistical inferences using a sample of major UK listed firms in the FTSE All Share Index for the period 2003-2007. Chapter Three deals with the analysis of the state and trends or evolution of corporate ownership and control structure and some board structures of the UK listed firms. The Chapter has been instrumental in preparing the raw materials of ownership and control structure variables that are used in the succeeding two chapters. Chapter Four deals with the analysis of the relationship between ownership structure and performance using aggregate stake of all identifiable blockholders’ categories and all external blockholders in the agency perspective. Chapter Five presents analysis of the relationship among ownership, control structures and firm performance using the structural equations framework in the control dominance-contestability perspective. Finally, the Thesis closes with a Conclusion. In summary, the Theses of this empirical research study suggest the followings. Firstly, there is the prevalence of multiple significant blockholders in the modern listed firms even when share ownership is dispersed. Secondly, in the presence of multiple significant blockholders in the firm, there is a likelihood that the second-type agency conflicts between large shareholders and minority shareholders exists, and that might be the dominant force that determines the possible control configuration even in listed firms with dispersed ownership. Thirdly and finally, the traditional one-equation modelling and their estimations in the methodology of looking into the relationship of separate share ownership categories or accounting for few of the categories might not precisely identify (1) the blockholders’ (control forces’) incentives and ability of exerting control over the modern corporations, (2) the problem of endogeneity that might arise in the relationships, and (3) the way significant multiple blockholders interact and share control of the firms. Hence, the use of structural equations modelling and control dominance-contestability perspectives, in which the roles of blockholders structure control forces, internal and external governance mechanisms, and the problems of endogeneity are accounted for might be appropriate to reveal the control configuration of modern listed firms with multiple large blockholders

The effects of 2007-2008 crisis on the CDS and the interbank markets: Empirical investigations

The global crisis of 2007-2008 is the most severe crisis since the Great Depression in the financial markets. Starting with the subprime defaults in the United States, it quickly spills over into other markets leading to the collapses of many financial institutions, bail-outs of banks worldwide and downturns in asset prices. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the repercussions of this crisis on CDS and interbank market and provide empirical evidence on the changes in the pricing of CDS contracts and interbank deposits. Chapter 2 discusses the determinants of CDS spread changes on European contracts. The most remarkable finding of the study is that the relation between credit spreads and their determinants is regime dependant and depends on the sector of economic activity. Before the crisis the underlying credit risk in the overall CDS market is sufficient to explain credit risk. During the crisis investors have a differing view on the risk of financial and non--financial contracts Interestingly, non-financial CDS contracts reflect the credit risk of the counterparty, but financial contracts do not. This implies that governments are expected to bail out dealers to prevent systemic risk. Chapter 3 provides further insight into the European corporate CDS spreads and proposes an equilibrium model accommodating the occurrence of structural breaks in the long-run relationship between the variables. These breaks are endogenously determined within unit root specifications used to describe the dynamics of the explanatory factors. The findings highlight that crisis shocks are persistent and have the potential to change long-run equilibrium dynamics. The systematic credit risk factor is proxied by the European iTraxx index and the idiosyncratic factor by the stock price of reference entity. The model indicates that stock market leads price discovery process. Vector error correction model confirms the strong predictive ability of the iTraxx index and the error correcting vector for changes in the CDS spreads. Chapter 4 focuses on European interbank market and has two main contributions. First, it estimates the cross-sectional density of interbank funding rates using nonparametric kernel methods. Second, it analyzes the effect of banks size, the operating currency and banks' nationality on the cross-sectional distribution of these rates. The findings strongly support the statistical significance of these effects and highlight the importance of these factors as early warning indicators of financial distress. Prior to the crisis, the borrowing segment of the market exhibits distinctive features such as highly volatile and multimodal distributions suggesting the occurrence of distortions in the cross-section of funding rates. During crisis, large domestic banks operating in Euros enjoy the most favourable rates. Banks' nationality analysis further confirms that interbank market provided early warning signals of incoming sovereign crisis

New Developments in Renewable Energy

Renewable energy is defined as the energy which naturally occurs, covers a number of sources and technologies at different stages, and is theoretically inexhaustible. Renewable energy sources such as those who are generated from sun or wind are the most readily-available and possible solutions to address the challenge of growing energy demands in the world. Newer and environmentally friendly technologies are able to provide different social and environmental benefits such as employment and decent environment. Renewable energy technologies are crucial contributors to world energy security, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and provide opportunities for mitigating greenhouse gases. International public opinion indicates that there is strong support for a variety of methods for solving energy supply problems, one of which is utilizing renewable energy sources. In recent years, countries realized that that the renewable energy and its sector are key components for greener economies

Essays on Productivity and Efficiency Analysis

This thesis is made up of four chapters on productivity and efficiency analysis. The first chapter is a critical review of theoretical and empirical literatures related to this broad field, which has attracted a considerable amount of economic research in the last years; the other three chapters are original contributions in different directions. Chapter 2 consists of an extensive Monte Carlo exercise on the misspecification of the inefficiency distribution in stochastic frontier models, Chapter 3 investigates, both theoretically and empirically, the relationship between vertical integration and firm efficiency in the Italian machine tool industry, and, finally, Chapter 4 sheds light on the effect of both inward and outward foreign direct investments on regional productivity growth in Europe. Although each chapter has its own independence, two features characterize the entire thesis: the detection of large differences in production performance both at the micro and aggregate level, and the attempt to relate these differences to other aspects of the production units, starting from economic theory

Industry and Tertiary Sectors towards Clean Energy Transition

The clean energy transition is the transition from the use of nonrenewable energy sources to renewable sources and is part of the wider transition to sustainable economies through the use of renewable energy, the adoption of energy-saving measures, and sustainable development techniques. The clean energy transition is a long and complex process that will lead to an epochal change, and it will allow safeguarding the health of the environment in the long term. For its success, it necessitates contribution from everyone, from the individual citizen to large multinationals, passing through SMEs; national and international policies play a key role in paving the way to this process. This Special Issue is focused on technical, financial, and policy-related aspects linked to the transition of industrial and service sectors towards energy saving and decarbonization. These different aspects are interrelated and, as such, they have been analyzed with an interdisciplinary approach, for example, by combining economic and technical information. The collected papers focus on energy efficiency and clean-energy key technologies, renewable sources, energy management and monitoring systems, energy policies and regulations, and economic and financial aspects

Internal Corporate Governance Mechanisms and Firm Performance: Evidence from GCC Countries

Across three empirical studies, this thesis investigates the relationship between internal corporate governance mechanisms and firm performance, measured by Tobin‟s Q and market to book value of total equity, in the six Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries. The thesis is motivated by central theories of corporate governance, several gaps in the literature, and the recent rapid growth of the GCC stock markets. The research employs data samples covering all GCC listed companies between the years 2012 and 2016, for which data are available. The first empirical study investigates the impact of overall ownership concentration on firm performance and finds a significant positive impact. As the objectives of share ownership vary by owner identity, ownership concentration is divided into four identity categories, namely: government, institutional, corporate, and individual/family. While government ownership concentration is found to have a significant negative performance effect, institutional ownership concentration, corporate ownership concentration, and individual/family ownership concentration are all found to have a significant positive performance effect. The second empirical study examines the effect of five board characteristics on firm performance. The results indicate that board activity and CEO duality do not have a significant effect on firm performance, while board size and board remuneration have a significant positive effect on firm performance. In contrast, board independence is found to have a negative performance effect. The relationships between the main variables in the first two studies suffer from endogeneity, reverse causality bias in particular, and this is controlled for with an instrumental variables approach, using a two-stage least squares estimator. In the third study, endogeneity bias is caused by unobserved heterogeneity, and this is controlled for using a two-way fixed effects estimator. The third empirical study investigates the impact of founder ownership concentration and founder board of director presence on firm performance. The results indicate that founder ownership concentration has no significant effect on firm performance when the founders are the government, institutions, or mixed. However, family founder ownership concentration has a significant positive performance effect, and royal family founder ownership concentration has a significant negative performance effect. The presence of family founders and royal family founders on boards of directors is found to have no significant effect on firm performance. Notably, the third empirical study contributes to the corporate governance field of research in general by introducing the dimensions of royal family founder ownership and royal family founder board of director presence

Book of abstracts of the 10th International Chemical and Biological Engineering Conference: CHEMPOR 2008

This book contains the extended abstracts presented at the 10th International Chemical and Biological Engineering Conference - CHEMPOR 2008, held in Braga, Portugal, over 3 days, from the 4th to the 6th of September, 2008. Previous editions took place in Lisboa (1975, 1889, 1998), Braga (1978), Póvoa de Varzim (1981), Coimbra (1985, 2005), Porto (1993), and Aveiro (2001). The conference was jointly organized by the University of Minho, “Ordem dos Engenheiros”, and the IBB - Institute for Biotechnology and Bioengineering with the usual support of the “Sociedade Portuguesa de Química” and, by the first time, of the “Sociedade Portuguesa de Biotecnologia”. Thirty years elapsed since CHEMPOR was held at the University of Minho, organized by T.R. Bott, D. Allen, A. Bridgwater, J.J.B. Romero, L.J.S. Soares and J.D.R.S. Pinheiro. We are fortunate to have Profs. Bott, Soares and Pinheiro in the Honor Committee of this 10th edition, under the high Patronage of his Excellency the President of the Portuguese Republic, Prof. Aníbal Cavaco Silva. The opening ceremony will confer Prof. Bott with a “Long Term Achievement” award acknowledging the important contribution Prof. Bott brought along more than 30 years to the development of the Chemical Engineering science, to the launch of CHEMPOR series and specially to the University of Minho. Prof. Bott’s inaugural lecture will address the importance of effective energy management in processing operations, particularly in the effectiveness of heat recovery and the associated reduction in greenhouse gas emission from combustion processes. The CHEMPOR series traditionally brings together both young and established researchers and end users to discuss recent developments in different areas of Chemical Engineering. The scope of this edition is broadening out by including the Biological Engineering research. One of the major core areas of the conference program is life quality, due to the importance that Chemical and Biological Engineering plays in this area. “Integration of Life Sciences & Engineering” and “Sustainable Process-Product Development through Green Chemistry” are two of the leading themes with papers addressing such important issues. This is complemented with additional leading themes including “Advancing the Chemical and Biological Engineering Fundamentals”, “Multi-Scale and/or Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Process-Product Innovation”, “Systematic Methods and Tools for Managing the Complexity”, and “Educating Chemical and Biological Engineers for Coming Challenges” which define the extended abstracts arrangements along this book. A total of 516 extended abstracts are included in the book, consisting of 7 invited lecturers, 15 keynote, 105 short oral presentations given in 5 parallel sessions, along with 6 slots for viewing 389 poster presentations. Full papers are jointly included in the companion Proceedings in CD-ROM. All papers have been reviewed and we are grateful to the members of scientific and organizing committees for their evaluations. It was an intensive task since 610 submitted abstracts from 45 countries were received. It has been an honor for us to contribute to setting up CHEMPOR 2008 during almost two years. We wish to thank the authors who have contributed to yield a high scientific standard to the program. We are thankful to the sponsors who have contributed decisively to this event. We also extend our gratefulness to all those who, through their dedicated efforts, have assisted us in this task. On behalf of the Scientific and Organizing Committees we wish you that together with an interesting reading, the scientific program and the social moments organized will be memorable for all.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Technology, Science and Culture

From the success of the first and second volume of this series, we are enthusiastic to continue our discussions on research topics related to the fields of Food Science, Intelligent Systems, Molecular Biomedicine, Water Science, and Creation and Theories of Culture. Our aims are to discuss the newest topics, theories, and research methods in each of the mentioned fields, to promote debates among top researchers and graduate students and to generate collaborative works among them