Business Commons^™

Essays On Corporate Debt Structure, Kyuyoung Oh

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

The dissertation consists of three chapters exploring three different facets of corporate debt structure choice. In the first chapter, “Risk Management and the Choice between Secured and Unsecured Debt: Evidence from Natural Experiment,” I study whether and how corporate hedging affects firms’ choice between secured and unsecured debt. Exploiting the introduction of steel futures as a natural experiment, I provide causal evidence that risk management enables firms to switch from secured to unsecured debt without sacrificing debt capacity. Cross-sectional evidence supports the interpretation that risk management drives the results. The effects are stronger for firms that are more likely to …

Three Essays On Health, Food, And Agricultural Economics, Saber Feizy

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation comprises three distinct but interrelated projects that explore the intersection of agriculture, nutrition, and economics. The first project investigates the impact of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) food programs on the health outcomes of its participants. Using fixed effects models and a matching algorithm, the study finds that while conventional fixed effects models indicate a significant effect of CSA participation on diet-related medical expenditures, our modified time-heterogenous fixed effects model did not find a meaningful effect. The results of the matching method are consistent with those of our modified model.

The second project examines racial disparities in the prevalence …

Essays On Evasion And Enforcement In Value Added Tax (Vat), Syed Jawad Ali Shah

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Value added tax (VAT) based on credit invoice system is the most common consumption tax in the world. Despite its self-regulating nature, VAT faces challenges in developing countries who have limited state capacity to check evasion and enforce tax on informal sectors of the economy. The tax authorities introduce policy interventions that can target the evasive behavior of firms interacting with informal sectors. My dissertation seeks to provide insight into three such policy reforms in Pakistan’s VAT regime. Therefore, this dissertation is composed of three essays.

In first essay of my dissertation, titled “Using Computerization to enforce VAT: Evidence from …

Three Essays On Entry Barriers And Incentives In Labor Markets, Samuel Ingram

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Occupational choice at the margin depends on both the incentives for entry and barriers to entry. The primary entry barrier determined by regulation is an occupational license. These are government laws determining the minimum qualifications to enter an occupation including education, testing, fees, and background checks. These regulations are currently enforced on 25% of the US labor market. The laws are crafted to protect consumers from unsafe goods and services but also have important consequences in labor market outcomes. The consequences may include fewer workers entering the profession, changes to which workers enter the profession, and altering competition, all of …

Analysis Of The Performance Of The Korean Government’S R&D Subsidy For Small Businesses, Soonjae Kwon

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Investment in Research and Development (R&D) is one of the most significant governmental activities. Many countries including Korea continue the R&D investment in various fields such as defense, environment, and medical care. In addition, the Korean government has a plan to significantly expand R&D investment for small businesses because the growth of small businesses is considered as an important factor for economic development such as new job creation. Since the government budget is a finite resource in which various departments compete for the budget, the budget increase of a program can be justified when the government grants lead to better …

Three Essays On The Application Of Machine Learning Methods In Economics, Abdelaziz Lawani

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Over the last decades, economics as a field has experienced a profound transformation from theoretical work toward an emphasis on empirical research (Hamermesh, 2013). One common constraint of empirical studies is the access to data, the quality of the data and the time span it covers. In general, applied studies rely on surveys, administrative or private sector data. These data are limited and rarely have universal or near universal population coverage. The growth of the internet has made available a vast amount of digital information. These big digital data are generated through social networks, sensors, and online platforms. These data …

Municipal Responses To The Shifting Environment Of Shopping Mall Retail, Paul Kleier Iii

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Economic development is a vital local government responsibility because it guides the provision of jobs for residents, markets for the purchase of goods, and revenue for the government itself. Shopping malls have been key drivers of local economic activity for decades, but their viability going forward has become uncertain since the turn of the century. This paper considers both reasons for this uncertainty and strategies that have been or can be implemented to improve mall sustainability and profitability. While literature addressing this topic focuses almost exclusively on the role played by mall management, this paper places special emphasis on the …

Ginning Up Economic Growth? Evaluating The Effects Of County-Level Alcohol Sales, Nathan Smith

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The academic literature on the topic of legal alcohol sales is vast; from the effects on crime to population health outcomes. The economic development impact of alcohol sales, however, remains relatively unexplored. This research examines county-level data from the State of Arkansas between the years 2009 and 2014 in a cross-sectional time-series regression analysis to determine whether economic development benefits exist that can be attributed either directly or indirectly to legal alcohol sales. Ultimately, this study finds that alcohol sales are positively and significantly related with food service and accommodation employment as well as higher per capita personal income.

Brokers And Investment Advisors, Nathaniel Phillip Graham

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

Brokers and investment advisors are a large and important part of the financial industry. Using a novel data set that includes the majority of the financial advisory industry, in this dissertation I document the size of the financial advisory industry and the prevalence of customer complaints in the industry, which I use as a proxy for misconduct. I then test for two potential drivers of advisors’ misconduct: professional standards in the form of fiduciary responsibilities and influence from social networks. I find that variation in fiduciary duties—specifically fiduciary versus suitability standards— does not appear to affect advisors’ propensity for misconduct. …

The Effects Of Country Of Origin Image And Patriotism On Consumer Preference For Domestic Versus Imported Beef, Thong Meas

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

Country of origin (COO) effect is a well-researched topic in the international marketing literature. It is well recognized that consumers are biased against imports, due to consumer ethnocentrism or patriotism tendency. However, the research on COO effects also suggests that consumers form certain image of origin countries (COO image) and favorable image, be it associated with the countries, their people, or general product quality, improves the evaluation and acceptance of foreign imports.

The publications related to COO effects which focus on consumer durables are abundant. However, the contrasting COO effects on food products are much less investigated. This study surveys …

Food Imports Under Foreign Exchange Constraints In The Cfa’S Franc Zone Of Sub-Saharan Africa (Ssa), Seydina Ousmane Sene

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

To respond to the high imported food prices in their domestic markets, net food importing countries in the Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA) zone^[1] are adjusting their import tariffs and homologate domestic prices of imported commodities such as rice, wheat, maize, and sugar. This research uses a multivariate specification of error correction model (VECM) of estimation to investigate the link between food imports, world price index of rice, wheat, maize and sugar, real effective exchange rates, domestic food production, GDP, and trade openness in the short and long run. The data are on each homogenous commodity from 1969 to 2012. …

Essays On The Value Of A Firm’S Eco-Friendliness In The Financial Asset Market, Muhammad S. Ahmadin

Theses and Dissertations--Agricultural Economics

This dissertation presents three different closely related topics on the value of eco-friendliness in the financial market. The first essay attempts to estimate hedonic stock price model to find a contemporaneous relationship between stock return and firms’ environmental performance and recover the value of investor’s willingness to pay of eco-friendliness. This study follows stock and environmental performances of the 500 largest US firms from 2009 to 2012. The firms’ environmental data come from the Newsweek Green Ranking, both aggregate measures: green ranking (GR) and green score (GS), and disaggregate measures: environmental impact score (EIS), green policy and performance score (GPS), …

Three Essays On Local Government Debt, Robert Greer

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

The local government tax-exempt debt market is a growing, and complex, sector of public finance. As local governments turn to debt financing the factors that contribute to interest costs of that debt have become important considerations for local government officials and politicians. Governance at the local level involves a network of overlapping governments some of which share a tax base. This system of overlapping governments that share a tax base are subject to externalities that arise from taxation, expenditures, and debt. These externalities are usually analyzed in terms of tax or expenditure reactions, but there are implications for local government …

Firm Bidding Behavior In Highway Procurement Auctions: An Analysis Of Single-Bid Contracts, Tacit Collusion, And The Financial Impact On Kentucky, David R. Barrus

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

Recently, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) indicated lack of competition and single-bid contracts in asphalt paving as a major issue facing state transportation departments. Single-bid contracts indicate a lack of competition which increases costs to state and local governments. During the period from 2005-2007 in Kentucky, 42 percent of all bids were awarded with only one firm bidding on the project. Of the asphalt paving jobs, 63 percent of those jobs were awarded to a single bidder.

The analysis of this dissertation focuses on detecting tacit collusion in asphalt paving jobs in Kentucky. A focal …

Competitive Strategy, Alliance Networks, And Firm Performance, Goce Andrevski

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the interplay between competitive strategy and alliance network structure in explaining firm performance in highly volatile environments (e.g., personal computers or consumer electronics). In particular, I examine the following three questions: (1) Which competitive strategies enable firms to gain superior performance? (2) How do these strategies affect the firm‘s networking behavior and lead to the formation of particular network positions? (3) What optimal combinations of competitive strategies and network structures maximize firm performance?

Firms can outperform rivals by pursuing two types of competitive strategies: advantage-creating and advantage-enhancing. Each of these strategies creates different needs, motivations, and opportunities …