Date of Award
12-2025
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Program
Financial Economics
Department
Economics and Finance
Major Professor
Atsuyuki Naka
Second Advisor
Luca Pezzo
Abstract
This dissertation examines how higher-moment risk and market frictions shape ETF outcomes across two essays. Essay 1 investigates the relationship between ambiguity and coskewness using U.S. equity ETFs. We show that coskewness can reduce—or increase—the measured degree of ambiguity depending on whether investors exhibit aversion to, or preference for, ambiguity. In practice, higher positive coskewness tends to mitigate uncertainty about ETF returns. Size also matters: large ETFs with significant coskewness substantially reduce ambiguity relative to smaller funds, whereas small ETFs often show insignificant reductions or even apparent increases in ambiguity, implying that larger funds are more effective at dampening uncertainty. We further test whether investors demand a lower ambiguity premium when the risky asset delivers higher coskewness and reject the null at both mean and median levels, indicating that ambiguity premia fall as coskewness rises. Essay 2 analyzes Japanese ETFs (JETFs) and identifies a nonlinear link among liquidity, tracking error, and risk-adjusted performance. We find a concave association in which both highly liquid and highly illiquid JETFs exhibit lower risk-adjusted returns and higher tracking errors; quantile regressions further indicate that smaller, less liquid JETFs can deliver superior risk-adjusted performance. Cross-market comparisons (Japan, the U.S., Ireland, and Luxembourg) show that liquidity’s impact on performance is most pronounced in Japan—which also has the highest average tracking error—while U.S.-listed JETFs have the lowest tracking error. Taken together, the essays provide new evidence that coskewness and ambiguity jointly influence required compensation in ETF markets and that liquidity interacts nonlinearly with tracking efficiency and performance, offering practical guidance for ETF selection across venues and sizes.
Recommended Citation
Tian, Jiayuan, "Examination of Features of ETFs in U.S. and Japan" (2025). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 3332.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/3332
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.