Abstract (eng)
At the core, this thesis is about corporate governance and finance. The first two chapters focus on one situation in corporate finance where agency conflicts are assumed to be severe. This part of the thesis analyzes firms' cash holdings. This is important as Myers and Rajan (1998) observed that it is easier to make cash holdings disappear than to divert, for example, a plant. In specific, the second chapter and the third chapter of this thesis focus on adverse selection and moral hazard in the context of corporate liquidity. Yet, this thesis does not confine itself to corporate finance issues, but takes a wider perspective and also investigates agency relationships in a different environment, i.e. agency problems of mutual funds. This analysis is pursued in the last chapter. The agency relationship in the case of investment companies arises as mutual fund owners typically employ a management company to invest their funds. The management company charges an advisory fee for its services which clearly represents income for the management company, but expenses for mutual fund investors.