Three Essays On Market Anomalies And Efficient Market Hypothesis

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three distinct essays. The first essay investigates the risk interpretation of the investment premium by empirically examining the fundamental view versus the sentimental view. I use VAR to break the investment beta into fundamental beta reflecting news about the future marginal productivity of investment, and financial beta reflecting news about discount rates. Overall, the results show that financial factors are the dominant driver of investment returns and they control the negative relation between investment and stock return. In the second essay, I examine the impact of financial contagion resulting from four global financial crises based on analyses of the global value premium. Results show that equity markets become more integrated after financial crises that exhibit global effects but less integrated after crises that exhibit regional effects. Overall findings support the risk story of the global value premium. The third essay examines the joint dynamics of volume and volatility in the junk bond market during the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Using trading volume information as a proxy for changes in the information set available to investors when financial crises occur, I investigate the impact of the subprime crisis on the informational efficiency of the junk bond market. The overall results show that the crisis does not have an impact on the market efficiency of the junk bond market.