Business Commons^™

Project Foresight Annual Report, 2021-2022, Paul J. Speaker

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Project FORESIGHT is a business-guided self-evaluation of forensic science laboratories across the globe. The participating laboratories represent local, regional, state, and national agencies. Economics, accounting, finance, and forensic faculty provide assistance, guidance, and analysis. Laboratories participating in Project FORESIGHT have developed standardized definitions for metrics to evaluate work processes, linking financial information to work tasks, and functions. Laboratory managers can then assess resource allocations, efficiencies, and value of services—the mission of Project FORESIGHT is to measure, preserve what works, and change what does not.

The benchmark data for the 2021-2022 performance period includes laboratory submissions for a variety of fiscal …

Economic Comparison Of The Relative Costs And Efficiency Of Using Thermo Fisher Scientific Rapidhit™ Id System Versus Traditional Dna Laboratory Analysis, Paul J. Speaker

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

With the emergence of any new technology, economic questions arise regarding the efficacy of the new technology in comparison to existing analytical techniques. While the question of ultimate interest concerns the return on investment (ROI) of the new technology, that ROI requires both an evaluation of the net benefits of the technology and an examination of the costs to implement the technology. In this report, we examine the full-loaded cost structure of traditional DNA analysis using fiscal year 2021 data from Project FORESIGHT and compare the cost per sample with the price structure of the Thermo Fischer Scientific RapidHit technology. …

Optimal Design And Operation Of Integrated Hydrogen Generation And Utilization Plants, Ijiwole Solomon Ijiyinka

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

There are considerable efforts worldwide for reducing the use of fossil fuel for energy production. While renewable energy sources are being increasingly used, fossil fuel still contribute about 80% of the energy used worldwide. As a result, the level of CO₂ is still increasing fast in the atmosphere currently exceeding about 410 parts per million (ppm). For reducing CO₂ build up in the atmosphere, various approaches are being investigated. For the electric power generation sector, two key approaches are post-combustion CO₂ capture and use of hydrogen as a fuel for power generation. These two solutions can also …

Project Foresight Annual Report, 2020-2021, Paul J. Speaker

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Project FORESIGHT is a business-guided self-evaluation of forensic science laboratories across the globe. The participating laboratories represent local, regional, state, and national agencies. Economics, accounting, finance, and forensic faculty provide assistance, guidance, and analysis. Laboratories participating in Project FORESIGHT have developed standardized definitions for metrics to evaluate work processes, linking financial information to work tasks, and functions. Laboratory managers can then assess resource allocations, efficiencies, and value of services—the mission of Project FORESIGHT is to measure, preserve what works, and change what does not.

The benchmark data for the 2020-2021 performance period includes laboratory submissions for a variety of fiscal …

Three Essays On Information Asymmetry Across Heterogenous Agents, Shenru Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This thesis models and explores agents’ decisions in reaction to events that serves to increse the heterogeneity among agents. The analysis is conducted on three aspects of financial economics. In chapter 2, we empirically examine how trading by peers on a new platform influences others’ adoption decision. We model the adoption process and find the relationship to be U-shaped, with first movers greatly discouraging their peers from adoption, while late movers slightly discouraging or encouraging their peers.

In chapter 3, we investigate how managerial incentives influence corporate social responsibility (CSR). We examine the staggered adoption of corporate opportunity waiver laws …

Tax Avoidance, Corporate Governance, And Corporate Policies, Yang Yang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation includes three essays examining the interactions between tax avoidance, corporate governance, and corporate policies. The first essay exploits corporate governance shocks induced by cross-listing in the U.S., and find that firms tend to engage in less tax avoidance after cross-listing. This effect is more pronounced for firms that experience significant improvements in corporate governance, and for firms from countries with weaker shareholder protection and disclosure requirements. Taken together, the results indicate that cross-listing in the U.S. helps align the interests of managers and shareholders and reduces managerial diversion.

The second essay examines the importance of tax avoidance to …

Project Foresight Annual Report, 2019-2020, Paul J. Speaker

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Project FORESIGHT is a business-guided self-evaluation of forensic science laboratories across the globe. The participating laboratories represent local, regional, state, and national agencies. Economics, accounting, finance, and forensic faculty provide assistance, guidance, and analysis. Laboratories participating in Project FORESIGHT have developed standardized definitions for metrics to evaluate work processes, linking financial information to work tasks, and functions. Laboratory managers can then assess resource allocations, efficiencies, and value of services—the mission of Project FORESIGHT is to measure, preserve what works, and change what does not.

The benchmark data for the 2019-2020 performance period includes laboratory submissions for a variety of fiscal …

Asymmetry Risk And Asset Pricing, Jiahao Gu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The dissertation primarily focuses on asymmetry risk and its role in asset pricing. Asymmetry risk is a crucial component of systematic risk. However, it does not attract much attention, probably because of the misconception that it is similar to other asymmetry measures (e.g., skewness). Chapter 1 defines the asymmetry risk. The risk indifference curve (RIC) predicts two asymmetry premiums in the return distribution rather than one in the downside. I also derive the risk-neutral measure of asymmetry risk.

Chapter 2 empirically investigates the asymmetry beta's return predictability and tail risk hedging ability. Consistent with the risk indifference curve, the asymmetry …

Project Foresight: A Ten-Year Retrospective, Paul J. Speaker, Max M. Houck

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Project FORESIGHT is a business-guided self-evaluation of forensic science laboratories across the globe. The participating laboratories represent metro, regional, state, and national agencies. Economics, accounting, finance, and forensic faculty provide assistance, guidance, and analysis. Laboratories participating in Project FORESIGHT have developed standardized definitions for metrics to evaluate work processes, linking financial information to work tasks, and functions. Laboratory managers can then assess resource allocations, efficiencies, and value of services—the mission of Project FORESIGHT is to measure, preserve what works, and change what does not.

The benchmark data for the 2018-2019 performance period includes laboratory submissions for a variety of fiscal …

Three Essays On Energy Markets, Sultan Alturki

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation includes three essays investigating topics relevant to the energy markets. The first essay employs a new dataset to measure the impact of investor sentiment regarding oil prices on the U.S. inflation premium. The empirical analysis relies on Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) and out-of-sample forecasts. The results indicate that a one standard deviation positive shock to overall investor sentiment regarding oil prices results in a significant increase in the U.S. inflation premium by approximately 1.2% over the subsequent 10 weeks. Compared to individual investor sentiment, institutional investor sentiment regarding oil prices has a larger impact on the U.S. inflation …

Stock Returns And Investor Sentiment: Textual Analysis And Social Media, Zachary Mcgurk, Adam Nowak, Joshua C. Hall

Economics Faculty Working Papers Series

The behavioral finance literature has found that investor sentiment has predictive ability for equity returns. This differs from standard finance theory, which provides no role for investor sentiment. We examine the relationship between investor sentiment and stock returns by employing textual analysis on social media posts. We find that our investor sentiment measure has a positive and significant effect on abnormal stock returns. These findings are consistent across a number of different models and specifications, providing further evidence against non-behavioral theories.

Occupational Fraud: Executive Compensation And Enforcements Against Auditors And Perpetrators., Erlina Papakroni

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation is comprised of three studies that examine the association of executive compensation with financial statement fraud and enforcements pursued against the independent auditor and the principal perpetrators when occupational fraud is detected.

The first study examines competing, though non-mutually exclusive, hypotheses for the path that equity compensation follows on its way to financial misreporting. We find that firms that experience financial statement fraud pay their executives higher levels and a higher proportion of equity compensation across the entire executive’s tenure. This starts in the first year of an executive’s tenure and continues up until the fraud period. These …

Empirical Asset Pricing With Equity Tail Risk, Jingrui Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This dissertation comprises three separate chapters on both risk-neutral and physical probability spaced equity tail risk for both the market index and in the cross-section of individual stocks.

The first chapter is titled “Does VIX Truly Measure Return Volatility?” This chapter studies the bias of the VIX index as a volatility measure. Particularly, VIX undervalues (overvalues) volatility when market return is expected to be negatively (positively) skewed. Alternatively, we develop a model-free generalized volatility index (GVIX). This chapter further derives the risk-neutral tail risk estimated from the VIX index.

The second chapter is titled “Decomposing the VIX: Implications for the …

Quantifying The Announcement Effects In The U.S. Lumber Market, Zarina Mamadalievna Ismailova

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The impact of public reports on price fluctuations has been widely investigated in many commodity markets, but little attention has been paid to the lumber market. In this thesis, we examine the impact of two housing market reports, namely the New Residential Construction (Housing Starts) and the New Residential Sales reports, on the U.S. lumber futures market. Our results suggest that the housing starts report does indeed affect lumber market volatility, while the New Residential sales report exerts a minor impact on lumber price volatility. Price volatility is measured by changes future contract prices for lumber. We further find that …

Mean-Swap Variance, Portfolio Theory And Asset Pricing, Jhan Wang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

The primary focus of this dissertation is a new risk measure, Swap Variance (SwV), and its applications to expected utility maximization, portfolio theory, and capital asset pricing models (CAPM) with loss aversion and gain preference. Superior to the classical mean-variance (MV) model, the mean-swap variance (MSwV) efficiency is consistent with expected utility maximization for all concave utility without any restriction on the form of either utility function or return distributions. Specifically, the MSwV efficiency is necessary and sufficient to the second-degree stochastic dominance (SSD). Thus, the SSD optimization can be consistently replicated by the SwV minimization for given means. The …

Three Essays On Remittances, Institutions, And Economic Development, Durga Gautam

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Does the inflow of remittances affect the quality of institutions in the recipient countries? This question is important because economists have stressed that good economic institutions, particularly those in the public sector, are instrumental for economic development and growth. The literature on remittances, however, does not document a thorough analysis and compelling evidence of the relationship between these private financial transfers and institutional quality. Unlike other kinds of international capital flows, remittances inflows are not mediated by the government of recipient countries. Remittances are not taxed directly and so are not a source of revenue for the government. Then a …

Budget Making, Financial Management And Human Services Administration, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Budgeting is one of the fundamental aspects of human services administration in both public and voluntary (nonprofit) social agencies. Yet, for many social workers and other professionals in the human services, budget-making and the other related responsibilities of financial management in social agencies have an air of magic and mystery about them. The focus of this chapter is to demythologize budgeting and other aspects of the financial management process in human service agencies.