PhD Defence: Jose Albuquerque de Sousa
In his dissertation ‘International stock markets: Essays on the determinants and consequences of financial market development’ José Albuquerque de Sousa discusses the determinants and consequences of financial market development in an international context.
José Albuquerque de Sousa defended his dissertation in the Senate Hall at Erasmus University Rotterdam on Thursday, 2 May 2019 at 13:30. His supervisors were Prof. Mathijs van Dijk (RSM) and Prof. Peter van Bergeijk (International Institute of Social Studies). Other members of the Doctoral Committee are Prof. Thorsten Beck(Cass Business School), Dr Egemen Genc (RSM) and Prof. Dirk Schoenmaker (RSM).
About Jose Albuquerque de Sousa
José Albuquerque de Sousa was born on April 14, 1978 in Porto, Portugal. After obtaining a degree in Architecture at the University of Porto, Portugal, and the Technical University in Berlin, Germany, he worked for 10 years as an architect in The Netherlands. In 2012, he obtained his pre-Master degree in General Management at the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, and one year later the Master degree in Finance and Investments from the same school. He received the “Best student award” and the Honours Class “Best essay award”. During his Master studies, he worked as a research assistant for Prof. Mathijs van Dijk. After an internship in the Real Estate department of ABN-AMRO bank, he started his doctoral studies under the supervision of Professors Mathijs van Dijk and Peter van Bergeijk in 2014, on the PhD project “Nascent markets: Understanding the success and failure of new stock markets.”
During his PhD studies, José went on a research visit to Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley, hosted by Prof. Gustavo Manso. He presented his work, among others, at the Annual Meeting of the European Finance Association (Oslo, 2016), the Annual Meeting of the American Economics Association (Chicago, 2017), and the Annual Meeting of the Financial Markets Association (Boston, 2017). His research focuses on Financial Markets and Institutional Investors.
As of September 1, 2018, José joined the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), in Bergen, Norway, where he will be working as an Assistant Professor.
Thesis Abstract
This dissertation consists of three empirical papers about the determinants and consequences of financial market development in an international context. It aims to contribute to our understanding of the functioning of global financial markets. Each chapter provides evidence of a different issue related to a specific stage of financial market development.
Chapter 2 provides an evaluation of the relative importance of structural and policy determinants of financial sector development by analyzing the success and failure of 59 newly established (“nascent”) stock markets since 1975. The results point to a more important role of banks, demand factors, and early success in fostering long-term stock market development, rather than structural factors such as legal and political institutions.
Chapter 3 examines the political consequences of opening a stock exchange in 34 African countries over 1960-2016. This chapter shows that political leaders stay longer in office when they open a stock exchange if local political institutions are autocratic. Moreover, opening a stock exchange in autocracies is associated with slower subsequent democratization of political institutions. This result is surprising because it suggests that incumbent elites may actually have incentives to support financial development, rather than opposing it.
Chapter 4 investigates the role of institutional investors on the governance of listed US firms, by analyzing the impact of ties between index and non-index funds within the same mutual fund family on the value of firms in which both funds invest. This chapter shows that family ties are associated with higher non-index fund ownership. Furthermore, firms held by funds with family ties are more profitable and have higher valuations.
Photos: Hans / Capital Images
