This thesis examines how industry differences affect both corporate financial policies and valuation. Chapter 1 studies the impact of a firm‟s product market power, through the channel of business risk, on its dividend policy. Using three measures of market power – the Herfindahl-Hirschman...

This thesis studies information in financial markets from three perspectives: the role of information asymmetry in alleviating dividend payers’ seasoned equity offering (SEO) announcement returns, the leading behavior of equity analysts who collect and process information, and the pricing of...

Academic research has made remarkable contributions to our knowledge as to how capital markets behave. This research has in turn stimulated changes in the practise of finance. From the seminal contributions of Markowitz (1952) and subsequently Sharpe (1964) we have learnt how diversification...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how and why a firm’s product market power affects its dividend policy. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses three measures of market power? The degree of import competition, Herfindahl-Hirschman index, and Lerner Index? To...