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Notes With Interest: Department Of Finance Newsletter, N05, Fall 2016, University Of Northern Iowa. Department Of Finance.

Department of Finance Newsletter

News about the activities of the Department of Finance

Does It Pay To Be Different? Relative Csr And Its Impact On Firm Value, David K. Ding, Christo Ferreira, Udomsak Wongchoti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Conventional aggregation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) raw scores and its interpreted impact on firm value have provided mixed evidence in the literature. We show that the value impact of CSR activities relies heavily on the industry-specific relative position of the firm. Only firms that distinguish themselves over their peers are associated with increased firm value. This finding is robust and holds for both responsible and irresponsible behaviors. Information concerns and portfolio construction can allude to a possible CSR clientele, suggesting the existence of an optimal CSR level. Our peer-effect results are robust to unobserved heterogeneity along the lines of …

The Price Contagion Effects Of Financial Reporting Fraud And Reputational Losses: Evidence From The Individual Audit Partner Level, Ferdinand A. Gul, Chee Yeow Lim, Kun Wang, Yanping Xu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study investigates the existence of price contagion effects for the low-quality audits of individual audit partners and the associated reputational losses in China. Low-quality partners are identified as those whose clients have been sanctioned by regulators for financial reporting fraud. Our evidence shows that sanctions induce a significant stock price decline among the contagion firms that share common low-quality partners and common low-quality audit firms; however, the decline is greater for the former. We also find that the price contagion effects of low-quality partners are more pronounced for firms located in regions with weak institutional development and less pronounced …

A Roadmap For Reducing Gun Violence In America, Daniel Webster

Center for Policy Research

How do you reduce gun violence in America? It seems rather daunting. I’m going to take you through some key things I think we can do to have far less gun violence in America

Drivers Behind The Monitoring Effectiveness Of Global Institutional Investors: Evidence From Earnings Management, Incheol Kim, Steve Miller, Hong Wan, Bin Wang

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

This paper studies the drivers behind the monitoring effectiveness of institutional investors in curbing earnings management in an international setting. We identify three distinct drivers and propose two competing hypotheses: the hometown advantage hypothesis predicts that because of proximity to monitoring information, domestic institutions have a comparative advantage over foreign institutions in deterring earnings management, whereas the global investor hypothesis predicts that foreign institutions have a comparative advantage because of their proclivity toward activism and ability to deploy superior monitoring technologies. Consistent with the hometown advantage hypothesis, in aggregate, domestic, but not foreign, institutional ownership is associated with less earnings …

Is Cash-Return Relation Risk Induced?, Chenxi Liu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Corporate cash holding is found to be able to predict stock return. Some scholars attribute this to the association of cash with systematic risk with respect to growth options. Others find that the relation is a mispricing effect. In this paper, I try to test whether the relation between cash and return is driven by systematic risk that captured by cash. The empirical results do not support the risk explanation of cash-return relation. First, the risk loading on CASH factor cannot predict returns, which is not consistent with rational frictionless asset pricing models. Second, CASH factor cannot reflect future GDP …

Territorial Tax System Reform And The Financial Behavior Of Multinational Firms, Jing Xing, Stephen Bond, Giorgia Maffini

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate whether the move from the worldwide tax system to the territorial tax system in Japan in 2009 affects the financial behavior of overseas affiliates of Japanese multinational companies. The reform substantially reduces the tax costs of profit repatriation in the form of dividends for Japanese overseas affiliates. We use this reform as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate whether and how the tax system affects multinationals’ cash holding and financing policies. Findings from our study sheds some light on possible outcomes of similar tax reforms in countries such as the United States. Based on a sample of Japanese overseas …

Why Do Countries Matter So Much In Corporate Social Performance?, Ye Cai, Carrie Pan, Meir Statman

Finance

Why do levels of corporate social performance (CSP) differ so much across countries? We answer this question in an examination of CSP ratings of more than 2,600 companies from 36 countries. We find that firm characteristics explain very little of the variations in CSP ratings. In contrast, variations in country factors such as stages of economic development, culture, and institutions account for a significant proportion of variations in CSP ratings across countries. In particular, we find that CSP ratings are high in countries with high income-per-capita, strong civil liberties and political rights, and cultures oriented toward harmony and autonomy. Furthermore, …

Sources Of Referral In Student Financial Counseling, Shinae Choi, Suzanne Bartholomae, Clinton G. Gudmunson, Jonathan Fox

Journal of Financial Therapy

This study evaluates sources of referral to financial counseling and varied declines in financial stress across the financial counseling process. College students came to counseling most often through self-referral. Younger students and women were more likely to respond to institutional referrals. There were two clearly discernable periods of decline in financial stress, smaller interim declines occurring after requesting appointments and larger declines that occurred in counseling sessions. The interim declines, however, were only operative for those who were self- or institutionally-referred and not for those who entered on a social-referral. A possible explanation is that social-referrals have already had “someone …

Promoting Savings At Tax Time Through A Video-Based Solution-Focused Brief Coaching Intervention, Lance Palmer, Teri Pichot, Irina Kunovskaya

Journal of Financial Therapy

Solution-focused brief coaching, based on solution-focused brief therapy, is a well-established practice model and is used widely to help individuals progress toward desired outcomes in a variety of settings. This papers presents the findings of a pilot study that examined the impact of a video-based solution-focused brief coaching intervention delivered in conjunction with income tax preparation services at a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance location (n = 212). Individuals receiving tax preparation assistance were randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups: 1) control group; 2) video-based solution-focused brief coaching; 3) discount card incentive; 4) both the video-based solution-focused brief coaching …

2016-2017 Operating Budget: Form Bor-10, Salaries Of Non-Classified Employees; Form Bor-11, Salaries Of Classified Employees, Southern University System. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

The Southern University System 2016-2017 Operating Budget. FOR BOR-10 Salaries of Non-Classified Employees, FORM BOR-11 Salaries of Classified Employees.

Sentiment And Stock Returns: Anticipating A Major Sporting Event -- Online Appendix, Geoffrey C. Friesen, Brian C. Payne, Jiri Tresl

Department of Finance: Faculty Publications

Table 3 (Appendix): Average Daily Raw Returns around NFL Super Bowl Events for Firms Headquartered in Losing, Winning, Favored, and Non-Favored States and the S&P 500

Table 5 (Appendix): Average Daily Abnormal Returns around NFL Super Bowl Events for Firms Headquartered in Losing, Winning, Favored, and Non-Favored States

Table 6 (Appendix): Average Daily Abnormal Returns around NFL Super Bowl Events for Firms Headquartered in Losing, Winning, Favored, and Non-Favored States Conditioned on whether the Firm is in a Losing or Winning State

Table 7 (Appendix) : Sample Split into Size Quintiles

Table 8 (Appendix) : Characteristics of the Matched Sample …

Asset Pricing With Financial Bubble Risk, Ji Hyung Lee, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper characterizes systematic risk stemming from the possible occurrence of price bubbles and measures the impact of this additional risk factor on asset prices. Historical stock market behavior and recent empirical experience have led economists and policy makers to acknowledge that price bubbles in financial markets do occur and need to be accounted for in risk analysis. New econometric tools for analyzing mildly explosive behavior (Phillips and Magdalinos, 2007; Phillips et al., 2011) have made it possible to detect the presence of bubbles in data and to date stamp their origination and collapse, providing empirical confirmation of such episodes …

Textual Analysis And Machine Leaning: Crack Unstructured Data In Finance And Accounting, Li Guo, Feng Shi, Jun Tu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In finance and accounting, relative to quantitative methods traditionally used, textual analysis becomes popular recently despite of its substantially less precise manner. In an overview of the literature, we describe various methods used in textual analysis, especially machine learning. By comparing their classification performance, we find that neural network outperforms many other machine learning techniques in classifying news category. Moreover, we highlight that there are many challenges left for future development of textual analysis, such as identifying multiple objects within one single document.

Can Information Be Locked Up? Informed Trading Ahead Of Macro-News Announcements, Gennaro Bernile, Jianfeng Hu, Yuehua Tang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Government agencies routinely allow pre-release access to information to accredited news agencies under embargo agreements. Using high-frequency data, we find evidence consistent with informed trading during embargoes of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) scheduled announcements. The E-mini Standard & Poor’s 500 futures’ abnormal order imbalances are in the direction of subsequent policy surprises and contain information that predicts the market reaction to the policy announcements. The estimated informed trades’ profits are arguably large. Notably, we find no evidence of informed trading prior to the start of FOMC news embargoes or during lockups ahead of nonfarm payroll, US Producer Price Index, …

An Examination Of The Efficacy Of Christian-Based Socially Responsible Investment Funds, Richard Stultz

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This applied doctoral research project examined the efficacy of Christian-based socially responsible investment funds. The researcher performed quantitative analysis of the risk-adjusted yields of the funds as compared to the S&P 500 Index as well as other types of socially responsible investment funds to accomplish this task. The timeframe for the study was 1995 to 2015. An examination of the differences in the performance of funds within the Christian-based category was also completed. Overall, the Christian-based funds underperformed the S&P 500 Index. The difference was statistically significant at the α = .10 level for each time period (i.e., 1-, 3-, …

Customer Concentration And Cost Structure, Hsihui Chang, Curtis M. Hall, Michael Paz

Michael Paz

This study examines the effects of customer concentration levels on firm cost structure decisions. Analyzing cost data from a sample of manufacturing firms from 1976 through 2013, we find a negative relationship between customer concentration and cost elasticity whereby firms exhibit lower proportions of variable-to-fixed costs in the presence of higher levels of customer concentration. Additionally, we find that greater customer bargaining power, proxied by supplier industry competition and product market fluidity, leads to lower cost elasticity as customer concentration becomes greater. These results are robust to alternate specifications as well as controlling for endogeneity using a two-stage model. Our …

Will Analysts Learn From Other Analysts Who Possess Superior Private Information, Hangyuan Shi

Theses & Dissertations

Based on a valuable testing venue in China where listed companies are required to disclose corporate site visit records of financial analyst to the public, this study examines whether analysts will learn from visiting analysts' forecasts that contain superior private information. I find that visiting forecasts tend to attract more analysts to issue forecasts in their aftermath than the prior forecasts issued by the same analysts but without conducting corporate site visit (non-visiting forecasts). The following effect is weaker when the visiting forecasts are more informative. In addition, other analysts’ forecasts following the visiting forecasts tend to move closer to …

Tipping The Scales: Is Right-To-Work Legislation On The Path To Prosperity?, Jessica Canada

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

With West Virginia having just become the twenty-sixth state to pass right-to-work (RTW) legislation, the U.S. labor relations movement is at a tipping point. Other policy makers are closely watching the recent revival of RTW laws that has occurred over the last five years and are analyzing relevant studies to determine whether passing legislation that would outlaw union shops in their states might be worth a second look.

With this paper I intend to examine one of the dominant arguments against enacting RTW legislation in a state, which is that this legislation results in a greater degree of state-level income …

Two Essays In Corporate Finance, Youngha Ki

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

For more than a decade, to reduce the agency problem, various ways have been examined on how to align the interest of manager with shareholders. Evidence and empirical findings are conflicting on the agency problem. Recently, deferred compensation as one incentive compensation draws the attention as a means to incentivize CEOs to make them work for the firm. However, it is still not evident if deferred compensation has effect on aligning CEOs with the firm’s goal possibly due to the issue on data. Therefore, the first essay investigates if deferred compensation has the effect on the agency problem and on …