Text

theses

This dissertation includes the following three essays involved in the joint determination of capital structure and stock rate of return, fair deposit insurance premium estimation, and the prediction of implied volatility of options on index futures. The first essay identifies the joint determinants of capital structure and stock returns by using three alternative approaches to deal with the measurement error-in-variable problem. The main contribution of this essay is the comprehensive confirmation on theories in corporate finance. The empirical results from the structural equation modeling (SEM) with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) show that stock returns, asset structure, growth, industry classification, uniqueness, volatility and financial rating, profitability, government financial policy, and managerial entrenchment are main factors of capital structure in either market- or book- value basis. Finally, the results in robustness test by using the Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model and the two-stage, least square (2SLS) method show the necessity and importance of latent attributes to describe the trade-off between the financial distress and agency costs in capital structure choice. In the second essay, we use the structural model in terms of the Stair Tree model and barrier option to evaluate the fair deposit insurance premium in accordance with the constraints of the deposit insurance contracts and the consideration of bankruptcy costs. The simulation results suggest that insurers should adopt a forbearance policy instead of a strict policy for closure regulation to avoid losses from bankruptcy costs. An appropriate deposit insurance premium can alleviate potential moral hazard problems caused by a forbearance policy. In the third essay, we use two alternative approaches, time-series and cross-sectional analysis and constant elasticity of variance (CEV) model, to give different perspective of forecasting implied volatility. We use call options on the S&P 500 index futures expired within 2010 to 2013 to do the empirical work. The abnormal returns in our trading strategy indicate the market of options on index futures may be inefficient. The CEV model performs better than Black model because it can generalize implied volatility surface as a function of asset price.

ETD_5329

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

Includes vita

by Tzu Tai

doi:10.7282/T3TQ5ZT1

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.