Business Commons^™

Boeing-Airbus Subsidy Dispute: A Sequel, Robert J. Carbaugh, John Olienyk

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of Business

After intensifying in the 1980s and 1990s, the longstanding dispute between Europe and the United States over government subsidies for the commercial jetliner industry again heated up in 2004. This time, however, the stakes were higher because both nations sued each other at the World Trade Organization over government subsidies paid to their respective commercial jetliner companies. The dispute over subsidies has heightened trade tensions between the United States and Europe, as both companies spar for dominance in the highly competitive industry of commercial aircraft.

This paper provides a sequel to "Boeing-Airbus Subsidy Dispute: An Economic and Trade Perspective," a …

The Importance Of Integrated Goal Setting: The Application Of Cost-Of-Capital Concepts To Private Firms, A. Frank Adams Iii, George E. Manners Jr, Joseph H. Astrachan, Pietro Mazzola

Faculty and Research Publications

In this article, we examine financial return, answer the question of how one knows when the return is adequate, and explore the relationship of short- and long-term returns as they relate to business health.

Using The Wacc To Value Real Options, Tom Arnold, Timothy Falcon Crack

Finance Faculty Publications

We present a real option valuation using the weighted average cost of capital (WACC). This is an alternative to risk-neutral real option valuation. Using the WACC involves a marginal increase in mathematical complexity, but it is easy to implement in a spreadsheet, and it is easy to present to management. Our analysis reveals, however, that because the real option valuation is immune to choices of admissible discount rates (as per Arnold and Crack 2003a), the critical issue is correct estimation of volatility, not choice of discount rate. We also point out that the natural and conservative tendency to overestimate risk …

Investing In Hedge Funds: Risks, Returns And Performance Measurement, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh, David K. C. Lee, Kok Fai Phoon

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Hedge funds are collective investment vehicles that are often established with a special legal status that allows their investment managers a free hand to use derivatives, short sell, and exploit leverage to raise returns and cushion risk. We review various issues relating to the investment in hedge funds, which have become popular with high net-worth individuals and institutional investors, as well as discuss their empirical risk and return profiles. The concerns regarding the empirical measurements are highlighted, and meaningful analytical methods are proposed to provide greater risk transparency in performance reporting. We also discuss the development of the hedge fund …

Prospect Theory, Analyst Forecast, And Stock Returns, David K. Ding, Charlie Charoenwong, Raymond Seetoh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper documents how prospect theory can be used to explain stock returns and analysts' forecast behavior. Positive earnings surprises are associated with increases in abnormal returns but negative earnings surprises have only a limited negative impact on returns. We find that analysts display asymmetric behavior towards positive and negative earnings growth. Analysts' forecasts are found to be accurate during periods of positive earnings growth, but overly optimistic during periods of negative earnings growth. Our findings have implications for the structuring of investment products, as well as the role of market timing in their introduction.

Membership On Editorial Boards And Rankings Of Schools With International Business Orientation, Kam C. Chan, Hung-Gay Fung Dr., Pikki Lai

GFCB Working Paper Series

Using four-year data (1990, 1994, 1998, and 2002), we have provided a ranking of schools with international business (IB) orientation based on the membership on editorial boards of 30 leading international business journals. Participation on editorial boards of quality journals is highly selective, and should provide a quality indication of the schools. Both quality unadjusted and adjusted board membership based ranking are calculated in this study. Several interesting findings are worth noting. First, U.S. schools play a significant leadership role among the leading IB programs. Second, the findings of this study also show the major contribution of non-U.S. schools, which …

How Do Institutional Investors Trade, Paul G. J. O'Connell, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using a novel and detailed custody trades dataset, this paper analyzes the trading behavior of institutions. Extant studies have examined the effects of past performance on trading by retail investors, day traders, and futures floor traders. Yet very little work has been done on institutions. We find that unlike other investors, institutions take on more risk following an increase in net profit and loss. However, the responses to a gain and loss are highly asymmetric. Institutions aggressively reduce risk in the wake of losses, but only mildly increase risk in the wake of gains. This asymmetry is more pronounced for …

How Corporate Culture Impacts Unethical Distortion Of Financial Numbers, Joseph F. Castellano, Kenneth Y. Rosenzweig, Harper A. Roehm

Accounting Faculty Publications

The recent accounting scandals have highlighted the critical role that investor confidence in the accuracy and lack of distortion of accounting data plays in the health of capital markets and, indeed, the whole economy. The legal and moral culpability of top-level company managers (as well as auditors) is an issue that will be addressed by the nation in the coming months. Whether or not legal sanctions are imposed on managers, it would be well to examine some of the reasons managers may feel compelled to distort accounting numbers as well as engage in other actions that damage the interests of …

Post-Jgtrra Dividend Planning, Danny A. Pannese, Paul N. Iannone

WCBT Faculty Publications

The JGTRRA reduced the tax rate on dividends for individuals and lowered the accumulated earnings and personal holding company taxes for corporations until 2008. This article reviews some of the planning techniques corporations and shareholders can use to take advantage of the temporarily lower rates.

One of the key provisions of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA), if not the prime emphasis of the legislation, is Section 302's reduction in the individual tax rate on corporate dividends received to 15% (5% for individuals in the 15% and 10% brackets). In an emerging trend, the lower …

Obesity, Educational Attainment, And State Economic Welfare, Martin W. Sivula Ph.D.

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

For the first time in history, estimates of the overweight people in the world rival estimates of those malnourished. The World Health Organization (WHO, 2002) ranked obesity among the top 10 risks to human health worldwide. In the early 1960s, nearly half of the Americans were overweight and 13% were obese. Today some 64% of U.S. adults are overweight and 30.5% are obese. Even more alarming, twice as many U.S. children are overweight than were twenty years ago, a 66% increase. Non-communicable diseases impose a heavy economic burden on already strained health systems. Health is a key determinant of development …

International Cross-Listing And The Bonding Hypothesis, Dan Segal, Michael King

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The authors describe a new view of cross-listing that links the impact on firm valuation to the firm's ability to develop an active secondary market for its shares in the U.S. markets. Contrary to previous research, cross-listing may not provide benefits for all firms, even when those firms meet the highest regulatory requirements for disclosure and supervision. When cross-listed firms are divided into two groups on the basis of their share turnover in the home market relative to the U.S. market, the firms that develop active trading in the U.S. market experience an increase in valuation. Cross-listed firms that remain …

Effects Of Board Structure On Firm Performance: A Comparison Of Japan And Australia, Ingrid Bonn, Toru Yoshikawa, Phillip H. Phan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article compares the effects of board size, proportion of female directors, proportion of outside directors and average age of directors on firm performance in Japanese and Australian firms. We found that board size and age of directors were negatively associated with the performance of Japanese firms. For Australian firms, outsider ratio and female director ratio were positively associated with performance.

Journal Of Actuarial Practice, Volume 11, 2004, Colin Ramsay , Editor

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

ARTICLES (the entire volume)

Product Innovation in Financial Services: A Survey • Christopher O'Brien 5

Phased Retirement for Defined Benefit Plan Participants • Patricia L. Scahill and Jonathan Barry Forman . 43

The Actuarial Value of Life Insurance Backdating • James M Carson and Krzysztof M Ostaszewski . 63

Decision Tree Analysis of Terminated Life Insurance Policies • Robert Keng Heong Lian, Yuan Wu, and Hian Chye Koh . 79

A Comparative Study of Parametric and Nonparametric Estimators of Old-Age Mortality in Sweden • Peter Fledelius, Montserrat Guillen, Jens Perch Nielsen, and Kitt Skovsø Petersen 103

Estimation of Complete …

Risk Sharing And The Market For Corporate Control: A Case For Golden Parachutes, Atreya Chakraborty

Accounting and Finance Faculty Publication Series

The predictability of security returns has received considerable attention in the literature, and yet the predictability of bond returns beyond the US markets has remained far less explored. Here we plan to remedy the shortcoming, and in that effort we analyse the ability of several predetermined information variables in predicting bond returns in the European market. We test if variables, commonly used for that matter in the context of other markets (such as inverse relative wealth, term spread, real bond yield and a January dummy) are also useful predictors of European bond returns. Due to some particularities of the sample …

Campbell Soup Company In 2004 (A), Roger R. Schnorbus

Robins School of Business White Paper Series, 1980-2022

As fiscal 2004[1] began, Doug Conant, the President and CEO of the Campbell Soup Company could take pride in the results of his 3-year transformation plan instituted in fiscal 2001 to revitalize the company. The key initiatives of the plan were to restore revenue and profitability growth and stimulate shareholder wealth.

Conant, who became President and CEO in January of 2001, called the plan, “the single most comprehensive commitment to revitalization ever undertaken in the 132-year history of Campbell Soup Company.”

The financial results achieved in fiscal 2002, the first year of the plan, were a mixed bag. Although net …

Journal Of Actuarial Practice - Volume 11 (2004) - Contents And Masthead

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

Contents

Editorial Policy: Topics suitable for this journal include AIDS, annuity products, asset-liability matching, cash-flow testing, casualty rate making, credibility theory, credit insurance, disability insurance, expense analysis, experience studies, FASB issues, financial reporting, group insurance, health insurance, individual risk taking, insurance regulations, international issues, investments, liability insurance, loss reserves, marketing, pensions, pricing issues, product development, reinsurance, reserving issues, risk-based capital, risk theory, social insurance, solvency issues, taxation, valuation issues, and workers' compensation

Review Process

Editor - Colin Ramsay, University of Nebraska

Associate Editors: Robert Brown, University of Waterloo ○ Cecil Bykerk, Mutual of Omaha ○ Ruy Cardoso, …

Estimation Of Complete Period Life Tables For Singaporeans, Siu-Hang Li, Wai-Sum Chan

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

Complete period life tables, with death rates for every year of age, are not available in Singapore. This study constructs such tables for Singaporeans from the limited mortality information contained in the abridged life tables provided by the Singapore Department of Statistics. We find that linear interpolation, Whittaker graduation, and the Coale-Kisker method together can generate complete life tables that are smooth and continuous. The validity of the complete life tables generated by our method is further confirmed by (1) comparing the life expectancies calculated from our estimated life tables with those provided by the Singapore Department of Statistics, and …

Rapid Calculation Of The Price Of Guaranteed Minimum Death Benefit Ratchet Options Embedded In Annuities, Eric R. Ulm

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

This paper presents a new method of obtaining quick and accurate values and deltas for discrete look back options using Taylor series expansions. This method is applied to the case of ratchet guaranteed minimum death benefits attached to annuity contracts, and the method is extended to include annuities where a fixed fund is attached to the variable account. Finally, both the speed and the accuracy of the method are compared to Monte Carlo simulation and the exact analytic solution. The Taylor expansion method is shown to be faster and, in most cases, more accurate than the alternative methods.

Approximating The Bias And Variance Of Chain Ladder Estimates Under A Compound Poisson Model, Janagan Yogaranpan, Sue Clarke, Shauna Ferris, John Pollard

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

We consider the problem of estimating the outstanding claims produced by a homogeneous general insurance portfolio. The specific model considered in this paper is one where the number of claims in any loss period follows a Poisson distribution, settlement delays follow the same multinomial distribution, and settlements are single lump sums that are independent identically distributed random variables. Simulations using this model reveal that the development ratios and the outstanding claims estimates produced using the chain ladder method are positively biased. We obtain approximate formulas for the biases using Taylor series expansions of the random variables about their means. The …

Phased Retirement For Defined Benefit Plan Participants, Patricia L. Scahill, Jonathan Barry Forman

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

The demographic makeup of the U.S. workforce is changing. The population between ages SS and 64 is projected to increase significantly by 2020, but employment rates for this age group have not been increasing. Employers will likely need to encourage critical employees in this age group to delay retirement. Phased retirement is one tool for delaying retirement, while also not continuing full-time employment, so it can be a compromise for employers and employees. Both Congress and two administrative agencies have begun to consider changes in pension laws and regulations that would be needed to accommodate phased retirement for employers who …

Privatizing Telecoms And Residual State Influence On Financial Performance, Burkhard N. Schrage, Paul M. Vaaler

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We test competing theoretical perspectives explaining likely shareholder returns from material investment decisions announced by privatizing telecommunications firms (telecoms) with varying levels of residual state ownership. A principal-agent perspective suggests that decrease in residual state ownership in privatizing telecoms leads to more positive shareholder returns. Over time, this effect increases. An alternative credible privatization perspective suggests that retention of substantial (though not controlling) residual state ownership leads to more positive shareholder returns, but only in the short run. Over time this ownership effect fades quickly. We examine empirical support for these competing perspectives with an event study analyzing cumulative abnormal …

The Actuarial Value Of Life Insurance Backdating, James M. Carson, Krzysztof Ostaszewski

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

Backdating is a common (and legal) practice in the U.S. whereby a life insurance contract bears a policy date that is prior to the actual application date. This practice often results in the opportunity for some insureds to reduce the annual premium paid. Using cash flow projections and U.S. mortality, lapse, and interest rate data, we provide a model of the actuarial value of term life insurance backdating. Results indicate that the benefits to the applicant of backdating a term life insurance policy increase as the applicant age (and hence premium) increases. Increasing mortality, lapse, and interest rates, as well …

Decision Tree Analysis Of Terminated Life Insurance Policies, Robert Keng Heong Lian, Yuan Wu, Hian Chye Koh

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

Statistical methods such as regression and survival analysis have traditionally been used to investigate the factors affecting the duration of terminated life insurance policies. This study explores a different approach: it uses a more recently developed data mining technique called decision trees. By sequentially partitioning the data to maximize differences in the dependent variable (duration in this study), the decision trees technique is good at identifying data segments with significant differences in the dependent variable. This identification can be useful when a company is trying to understand the factors driving or associated with the termination of life insurance policies. Decision …

Credibility Theory And Geometry, Elias S.W. Shiu, Fuk Yum Sing

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

We present a geometric approach to studying greatest accuracy credibility theory. Our main tool is the concept of orthogonal projections. We show, for example, that to determine the Buhlmann credibility premium is to find the coefficients of the minimum-norm vector in an affine space spanned by certain orthogonal random variables. Our approach is illustrated by deriving various common credibility formulas. Several equivalent forms of the credibility factor Z are derived by means of similar triangles.

A Comparative Study Of Parametric And Nonparametric Estimators Of Old-Age Mortality In Sweden, Peter Fledelius, Montserrat Guillen, Jens Perch Nielsen, Kitt Skovso Petersen

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

A recent study of Swedish old-age mortality used a modified GompertzMakeham model with a linear hazard for the force of mortality. We propose an alternative model using smooth two-dimensional kernel hazard estimators and introduce a new estimator based on the multiplicative bias correction for the multivariate marker dependent hazard. The multiplicative bias correction appears to have great potential for estimating mortality rates at the highest ages. We also observe that mortality continues to increase at an exponential rate even in old-age.

Product Innovation In Financial Services: A Survey, Christopher O'Brien

Journal of Actuarial Practice (1993-2006)

This paper considers product innovation in insurance and other financial services, an area where actuaries have an important role. It considers the proposition that there is no unique formula for success and that what works well in one situation may not work well in another. It first examines the sources of ideas for new products and, in particular, the role played by consumers, which is generally regarded as weak. It then looks at how ideas are implemented, with particular importance attributed to cross-functional teams and the formality of the product development process. Then it considers how success is measured (with …

Gatekeeping, Peter B. Oh

Articles

Gatekeeping is a metaphor ubiquitous across disciplines and within fields of law. Generally, gatekeeping comprises an actor monitoring the quality of information, products, or services. Specific conceptions of gatekeeping functions have arisen independently within corporate and evidentiary law. Corporate gatekeeping entails deciding whether to grant or withhold support necessary for financial disclosure; evidentiary gatekeeping entails assessing whether expert knowledge is relevant and reliable for admissibility. This article is the first to identify substantive parallels between gatekeeping in these two contexts and to suggest their cross-treatment. Public corporate gatekeepers, like their judicial evidentiary analogues, should bear a duty of reliable monitoring.

Drivers Of The Value Of The Firm: Profitability, Growth, And Capital Intensity, Tom W. Miller, Richard E. Mathisen

Faculty and Research Publications

Value-based management systems focus on wealth and the wealth creation process and promote the generation of value for the shareholders. A valuation model for the firm is extended analytically to focus explicitly on profitability, growth, and capital intensity as drivers of the value of the firm. The extended model provides information about the sensitivities of the value of the firm to changes in the firm's profitability, growth, and capital intensity. These sensitivities are presented in terms of changes per dollar of sales and actual dollar changes. The changes per dollar of sales show the relative sensitivities of the changes in …

The Past, Present And Future Of Debtor-In-Possession Financing, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

Chapter 11's distinctive post-petition financing rules trace their ancestry back to the origins of large scale corporate reorganization in America in the nineteenth century. In this sense, post-petition financing has always been with us. But in the past decade, the role of the financers has changed. After a century in the shadows, post-petition lenders have stepped onto center stage. The DIP loan agreement has become the single most important governance lever in many large Chapter 11 cases. Why have these formerly bashful financers suddenly started hogging the spotlight? I argue in this article that the generous terms offered to DIP …

Corporate Anatomy Lessons, David A. Skeel Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

The book that will lay the groundwork for the corporate law debates of the coming decade is The Anatomy of Corporate Law. Written by seven of the world's leading corporate law scholars - Henry Hansmann, Reinier Kraakman and Ed Rock of the U.S.; Paul Davies of England; Gerard Hertig of Switzerland; Klaus Hopt of Germany; and Hideki Kanda of Japan - The Anatomy of Corporate Law attempts to identify the underlying structure of corporate law, and to provide a framework for understanding the wide range of approaches that different countries take to corporate law regulation. It is hard to overstate …