Business Commons^™

The Gender Bias Burden On Business: Women's Access To Credit In Bahrain, Sandra J. Thiman

Mary Ann Bolton Undergraduate Research Award

Entrepreneurship is essential to virtually every economy; however, Bahraini women face many challenges accessing business development. In particular, a major constraint for these women is their access to capital support. In 2020, the government signed a law prohibiting gender-based discrimination in access to credit to help the issue; nonetheless, its effectiveness has yet to be systematically examined. Using data from several sources, I test whether the law significantly affected the gender gap in borrowing for business purposes while controlling for other variables. Importantly, I find that women’s labor force participation is a significant factor in reducing the borrowing gap between …

Influence Of External And Internal Factors On Financial Advisors' Guidance Of Clients In The Area Of Charitable Giving, Angela J. Gorsuch Widner

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Charitable giving plays a vital role in the ability of nonprofit organizations to carry out their missions to contribute to the well-being of society. Research suggests that most wealthy Americans have an interest in being philanthropic and giving to nonprofit organizations. Financial advisors often play a substantial role in helping their clients understand the complex policies related to charitable giving. As the experts, financial advisors play an important consultative role in making sense of the benefits that can come as a result of charitable giving.

The purpose of this study was to explore how financial advisors work with clients in …

Biotech Fever: Market Overreaction To Fda Clinical Trials, Ethan J. Hugstad

Honors Program Theses

Picture this: someone buys the stock of a firm that is about to announce the results of a drug’s FDA clinical trial the next day. They go to bed that night, imagining the potential of their newly owned business to finally cure a disease that has impacted so many families. They wake up the next morning to find that the firm has lost half of its market value because the drug failed. This is the stark reality that many small investors face: the unpredictability of price movements in response to nonfinancial information being released to the public.

The Impact Of Hyped Ipo's On The Market, Elias Escobedo

Honors Program Theses

Increasingly, finance researchers are including irrationality into their understanding of the stock market, including emotions (Tetlock, 2007) or misunderstanding of available information (Huberman & Regev, 2007). The popularity of the recent Alibaba IPO demonstrates that investors can get excited.1 Is excitement an important determinant of the behavior of stock market investors? Empirical evidence suggests that investors “herd” into similar stocks (Wermers, 1999) and may experience common feelings of optimism and pessimism (Tetlock, 2007). If investor’s emotions correlate, what about excitement? Can the excitement for a particular stock spill over into the excitement of other stocks?

To analyze the impact excitement …

The Mutual Find Scandal: A Day Trading Simulation, Matt Becker

Presidential Scholars Theses (1990 – 2006)

The 6.9 trillion dollar mutual fund industry has come under fire due to questionable practices conducted by mutual fund companies. Individual investors trying to diversify with a small amount of money have historically turned to mutual funds. Mutual funds were used as a safe vehicle for investors rather than buying thirty different stocks in order to diversify away unsystematic risk. The perception that mutual fund companies were acting in the best interests of individual investors has been challenged in the past year. Elliot Spitzer, the New York Attorney General, brought to light some illegal and highly questionable activities of mutual …

Financial Planning As A Career, Mikol Sesker

Presidential Scholars Theses (1990 – 2006)

Financial literacy in the United States stands at about 18% of the population according to the Investor Protection Trust's 1996 Investor Knowledge Survey. This figure includes the infamous baby-boomer generation which is now in the process of thinking about retirement and making major financial decisions. This need has fueled the growth of the financial services industry and particularly the field of financial planning. People today feel inadequate to the task of organizing their financial situation and making sound investment decisions. For help with this situation they often turn to a personal financial planner. But the search for a competent, trustworthy …

Actuarial Computation Of Multiemployer Pension Plan Withdrawal Liability, Kelly A. Renze

Presidential Scholars Theses (1990 – 2006)

This project helps to demonstrate how pension actuaries must keep a constant eye on new laws. The pension industry is constantly bombarded with new laws which force them to alter policies and procedures. Because of the huge number of laws, it is difficult for all employees to fully understand every law. During my stay at the Principal, I discovered that many passages are interpreted differently by different people. I also uncovered some details through my research that other employees were not aware of.

Because of this complexity, it is often necessary to assign to one person, such as myself, the …