Business Commons^™

The Effect Of Financial Hedging On The Incentives For Corporate Diversification: The Role Of Stakeholder Firm-Specific Investments, Sonya Seongyeon Lim, Heli Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Financial hedging and corporate diversification are often considered substitutive means of risk management, implying that rapid development of financial hedging markets will yield less need for firms to manage risk through costly diversification. Building on a stakeholder-based view of risk management, we show that financial hedging and corporate diversification are more often complementary than substitutive. Financial hedging reduces a firm’s systematic risk, encouraging firm-specific investment by stakeholders. Larger firmspecific investment loads excessive idiosyncratic risk on the stakeholders, increasing the benefits of reducing idiosyncratic risk through diversification. Therefore, financial hedging can increase a firm’s incentives to manage risk through diversification.

Optimal Liquidation Strategies And Their Implications, Christopher Ting, Mitch Warachka, Yonggan Zhao

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper studies optimal liquidation when the selling price depends on the rate of liquidation, transaction time, volume, and the asset's intrinsic value. A generic closed-form solution for maximizing the discounted liquidation proceeds is derived. To obtain financial insights, three parametric specifications that proxy for increasingly realistic market conditions are examined. In our framework, maximizing liquidation proceeds and minimizing liquidity costs are equivalent. The optimal strategies imply more rapid liquidations in less liquid markets. We also show that volatility is stochastic when market liquidity is unpredictable.

China Forges Ahead On Financial Reform – At Its Own Pace, With Its Own Rules, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

China’s fast-evolving financial industry, like the country itself, defies the type of easy, sound bite-friendly synopses that foreign investors might like. It’s often unclear exactly what factors are stoking China’s remarkable economic growth engine. Or, as Winston Wenyan Ma, an investment banker who most recently worked for J.P. Morgan in New York and is the author of Investing in China – New Opportunities in a Transforming Stock Market, puts it: “The Chinese financial industry is a very complex story.” Speaking at the recent Wharton China Business Forum in Philadelphia, Ma moderated a panel on financial reform – a key ingredient …

Do Hedge Funds Deliver Alpha? A Bayesian And Bootstrap Analysis, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using a robust bootstrap procedure, we find that top hedge fund performance cannot be explained by luck, and that hedge fund performance persists at annual horizons. Moreover, we show that Bayesian measures, which help overcome the short-sample problem inherent in hedge fund returns, lead to superior performance predictability. Relative to sorting on OLS alphas, sorting on Bayesian alphas yields a 5.5 percent per year increase in the alpha of the spread between the top and bottom hedge fund deciles. Our results are robust, and relevant to investors, as they are neither confined to small funds, nor driven by incubation bias, …

Exploring Revenue Management In Spas: Yield Management Concepts In The Spa Industry Today, Elaine M. Balkoulis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The primary goal of this paper is to further explore the applications of yield management in the spa industry and identify the techniques that are currently used by spa operators. The paper will also evaluate the most popular spa software systems utilized. Furthermore, the paper will investigate the existence of yield management features in the current spa software systems. In addition an effort will be carried out to examine the spa patrons’ perception on yield management strategies in the spa environment.

Costly Arbitrage And The Lead-Lag Structure Between Value And Glamour Stocks, Meng Li

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Motivated by the findings of Lo and Mackinlay (1990) that size premium can be partially attributed to the lead-lag relation between the returns of large stocks and those of small stocks, in this thesis we hypothesize that a possible lead-lag structure between value and glamour returns can partially explain the value premium anomaly.

The thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter I documents a pronounced lead-lag structure between value and glamour stocks: the glamour stocks lead value stocks in terms of both mean returns and residual volatilities, suggesting that value stocks delay in price adjustment to new information. To further explore …

Forecasting The Kc-135 Cost Per Flying Hour: A Panel Data Analysis, Michael T. Bryant

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis developed models to forecast the KC-135R monthly Consumables (CONS) and Depot Level Reparable (DLR) Cost per Flying Hour (CPFH) for each U.S. Air Force service component. Using data for each operating location from FY1998 to FY2004, the models were constructed using panel data analysis, a form of regression that adds a cross-sectional and time-series dimension. In addition to including factors previously identified as prime contributors to CPFH, the models added new elements that may influence maintenance costs and be of interest to policymakers. These elements included mission capable rates, airframe operating hours, and climatology factors. An interaction variable …

Price Vs. Performance: The Value Of Next Generation Fighter Aircraft, John M. Stelly

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Department of Defense (DoD) is currently recapitalizing its aging fighter aircraft inventory with the F-22A and F-35. While the DoD may consider cost and performance issues, it does not use a quantitative model that effectively measures the tradeoffs between the two. This thesis constructs a hedonic model of the fighter aircraft market to measure the implicit price on fighter performance characteristics and specifically applies it to next-generation aircraft. Data from 50 aircraft from 1949-present were used to construct two models – one based on procurement costs and one based on research, design, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) costs. …

Pb1658 Tennessee Forage Budgets, The University Of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service

Financial Management

This publication contains short-term planning budgets for the most prevalent forage enterprises in Tennessee. Guideline tobacco, livestock and field crop budgets are published in separate publications.

Sp612-A Tools For Money Management - Net Worth Statement Instructions, The University Of Tennessee Agricultural Extension Service

Financial Management

A net worth statement can help you measure progress toward long-term financial goals. Net worthstatements are also useful summaries of your financial affairs, and you may use them in different ways

Irving Fisher, Expectational Errors And The Uip Puzzle, Rachel Campbell, Kees Koedijk, James R. Lothian, Ronald Mahieu

CRIF Seminar series

In this paper, we first review Irving Fisher’s seminal work on UIP and on the closely related equation linking interest rates and inflation. Like Fisher, we find that the failures of UIP are tied in with individual episodes in which errors surrounding exchange-rate expectations have been persistent but in the end transitory. We find considerable commonality in deviations from UIP and PPP suggesting that both of these deviations are driven by a common factor. Using a dynamic latent factor model we find further that deviations from UIP are almost completely due to forecasting errors in exchange rates – a result …

Comprehensive Income, Future Earnings, And Market Mispricing, Jong-Hag Choi, Somnath Das, Yoonseok Zang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Public Disclosure And Private Decisions: The Case Of Equity Market Execution Quality, Ekkehart Boehmer, Robert Jennings, Li Wei

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In 2001, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) required market centers to publish monthly execution-quality reports in an effort to spur competition for order flow between markets. Using samples of stocks trading on several markets, we investigate whether past execution quality affects order-routing decisions and whether the new disclosure requirements influence this relationship. We find that routing decisions are associated with execution quality; markets reporting low execution costs and fast fills subsequently receive more orders. Moreover, the reports themselves appear to provide information that was unavailable previously. Our results are consistent with active competition for order flow that can be …

The Impact Of Human Capital On The Cost Of Air Force Acquisition Programs, Jeffrey C. Feuring

Theses and Dissertations

Previous studies have established a link between Human Capital and performance both at the firm and the individual level. These studies have shown that performance can be improved with additional personnel and/or higher education levels. This study attempts to build on this relationship by using the Cobb-Douglas Production function to relate inputs to outputs. The inputs to the function are the number of cost analysts positions, military and civilian, and an education variable for the number of master’s degrees in the field. The measure of output is the average cost overrun of Air Force contracts. A time series regression was …

The Costs Of Not Using Green Design In The Usaf: Would Using Green Building Design Have Resulted In Life Cycle Cost Savings?, John Kimball Osborne

Theses and Dissertations

This study’s purpose is to determine if using green building design would have resulted in life cycle costs savings for the United States Air Force. Green designs are those that employ steps to mitigate the impacts facilities have on the environment by using resources more efficiently than conventional design. The prevailing ranking system for green design in the United States is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system which evaluates facilities on certain characteristics, assigning point values that translate to non-certified, certified, silver, gold, or platinum ratings. The author attempts here to show how previous studies indicated …

Realized Daily Variance Of S&P500 Cash Index: A Revaluation Of Stylized Facts, Shirley J. Huang, Qianqiu Liu, Jun Yu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper, the realized daily variance is obtained from intraday transaction prices of the S&P 500 cash index over the period from January 1993 to December 2004. When constructing realized daily variance, market microstructure noise is taken into account using a technique proposed by Zhang, Mykland, and Ait-Sahalia (2005). The time series properties of realized daily variance are compared with those of variance estimates obtained from parametric GARCH and stochastic volatility models. Unconditional and dynamic properties concerning the realized daily variance are examined, the relationship between realized variance and returns is investigated, and the stylized facts concerning realized daily …

Termination Risk And Managerial Risk Taking, Atreya Chakraborty, Shahbaz A. Sheikh, Narayanana Subramanian

Atreya Chakraborty

We test the hypothesis that managers who face a high termination risk make less risky investments than the managers who face a low termination risk. A 10% increase in our measure of termination risk is associated with a 5%–23% decline in stock returns volatility for the median firm in our sample. We also find that for CEOs who are more likely to be fired in the event of investment failure, the inhibiting effect of termination risk appears to offset the positive effect of convexity of managerial compensation on managerial risk taking. These results are robust to alternative definitions of forced …

Investing In Hedge Funds When Returns Are Predictable, Doron Avramov, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre

This paper evaluates hedge fund performance through portfolio strategies that incorporate predictability in managerial skills, fund risk loadings, and benchmark returns. Incorporating predictability substantially improves performance for the entire universe of hedge funds as well as for various investment styles. The outperformance is strongest during market downturns when the marginal utility of consumption is relatively high. Moreover, the major source of investment profitability is predictability in managerial skills. In particular, long-only strategies that incorporate predictability in managerial skills outperform their Fung and Hsieh (2004) benchmarks by over 17 percent per year. The economic value of predictability obtains for different rebalancing …

An Investigation Of Promotional Outlet Effectiveness For Ohio Real Estate Brokers, James E. Larsen, Joseph Coleman, Charles S. Gulas

Finance and Financial Services Faculty Publication

This monograph presents survey data gathered from both Ohio residents and members of the Ohio Association of REALTORS®. The results of the public survey provide interesting information that may enable real estate licensees to effectively target their promotional efforts. The results suggest that if the objective is self promotion, any advertising medium is likely to have limited effectiveness. A large percentage of respondents indicated that they located the agent who assisted them in their housing transaction via reference from a friend or relative. Referrals are so important that a licensee should make every effort to cultivate this activity. Perhaps periodic …

Repricing And Executive Turnover, Narayanan Subramanian, Atreya Chakraborty, Shahbaz Sheikh

Atreya Chakraborty

We examine whether the threat of executive turnover faced by a firm affects its decision to reprice stock options held by its executives. We estimate a model of voluntary turnover among top executives and show that the predicted turnover from this model is positively related to the probability of repricing. The relationship is robust to the inclusion of several known determinants of repricing. Our results are consistent with a model in which a tight labor market makes executives hard to replace, forcing firms to reprice stock options when they go underwater.

Foreign Funds Spy Hidden Bounties In Indian Distressed Assets, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

Foreign funds are garnering a sizable presence in India's nascent market for distressed assets, which is currently estimated between $45 billion and $55 billion. India's economic boom offers pockets of opportunity for investors to buy underperforming assets such as cement and sugar plants, revive them with fresh capital or liquidate them to profit handsomely. A big driver for this growing market is the government's move to purge the financial system of sick assets accumulated over decades, but obstacles include the absence of a developed corporate debt market, limits on foreign investments and procedural bottlenecks. India Knowledge@Wharton spoke to key participants …

Why Hedge Funds Are Looking To India For Greater Upside Potential, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

A few years ago, hedge funds were barely on the radar screen in the Indian marketplace, and they were highly secretive investment vehicles even in the U.S. Today, it's a different story. As big returns are no longer easy to come by in domestic markets, international hedge funds are increasingly looking to countries like India and evaluating investment opportunities and the potential gains to be made. To understand what factors affect their success, India Knowledge@Wharton talked to experts from Wharton and elsewhere about the attractiveness -- as well as the risks -- of the Indian marketplace for hedge funds.

A Cardan’S Discriminant Approach To Predicting Currency Crashes, Benedict Seng Kee Koh, Wai Mun Fong, Fabrice Chan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper models large swings in exchange rates by introducing nonlinearity via the generalized normal (GEN) distribution [Lye, J.N., Martin, V.L., 1993. Robust estimation, nonnormalities and generalized exponential distributions. Journal of the American Statistical Association 88, 261-267]. As the distribution allows for bimodality, a switch between modes may give rise to currency crashes. A statistic known as Cardan's discriminant, based on the shape parameters of the GEN, is used to detect bimodality. The Cardan's discriminant is found to reliably predict currency crashes for eight emerging countries and generate relatively low false signals for stable currencies.

On Stiffness In Affine Asset Pricing Models, Shirley Junying Huang, Jun Yu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Economic and econometric analysis of continuous-time affine asset pricing models often necessitates solving systems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) numerically. Explicit RungeûKutta (ERK) methods have been suggested to solve these ODEs both in the theoretical finance literature and in the financial econometrics literature. In this paper we show that under many empirically relevant circumstances the ODEs involve stiffness, a phenomenon which leads to some practical difficulties for numerical methods with a finite region of absolute stability, including the whole class of ERK methods. The difficulties are highlighted in the present paper in the context of pricing zero-coupon bonds as well …

Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group On Structure, Management And Oversight: Choosing Common Ground And Moving Ahead, Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group

Maine History & Policy Development

In his June 19, 2006, Executive Order, Governor John E. Baldacci directed the Working Group to “offer its best guidance and advice to the Governor respecting the long-term governance, management, and oversight structure for the Allagash Wilderness Waterway” (AWW). In the intervening six months the members of the Working Group have engaged in an examination of the forty-year history of the Waterway and an analysis of the conditions and circumstance that led to the Governor’s Executive Order. We have reviewed documentation of the AWW history, taken testimony at numerous public meetings and hearings, conducted correspondence with members of the several …

Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group On Structure, Management And Oversight: Choosing Common Ground And Moving Ahead (Executive Summary), Allagash Wilderness Waterway Working Group

Maine History & Policy Development

In his June 19, 2006, Executive Order, Governor John E. Baldacci directed the Working Group to “offer its best guidance and advice to the Governor respecting the long-term governance, management, and oversight structure for the Allagash Wilderness Waterway” (AWW). In the intervening six months the members of the Working Group have engaged in an examination of the forty-year history of the Waterway and an analysis of the conditions and circumstance that led to the Governor’s Executive Order. We have reviewed documentation of the AWW history, taken testimony at numerous public meetings and hearings, conducted correspondence with members of the several …

The Missing Monitor In Corporate Governance: The Directors' And Officers' Liability Insurer, Tom Baker, Sean J. Griffith

All Faculty Scholarship

This article reports the results of empirical research on the monitoring role of directors’ and officers’ liability insurance (D&O insurance) companies in American corporate governance. Economic theory provides three reasons to expect D&O insurers to serve as corporate governance monitors: first, monitoring provides insurers with a way to manage moral hazard; second, monitoring provides benefits to shareholders who might not otherwise need the risk distribution that D&O insurance provides; and third, the “bonding” provided by risk distribution gives insurers a comparative advantage in monitoring. Nevertheless, we find that D&O insurers neither monitor corporate governance during the life of the insurance …

The Impact Of The Return To Lagged Reserve Requirements On The Federal Funds Market, Vladimir Kotomin, Drew B. Winters

Faculty Publications - Finance, Insurance, and Law

We examine the impact on the settlement Wednesday effect in daily fed funds rates following the change from contemporaneous reserve requirements (CRR) to lagged reserve requirements (LRR). The Federal Reserve changed from CRR to LRR, in part, to make it easier for banks to settle their reserve accounts. Our hypothesis is that the switch to LRR will reduce the demand for reserves on settlement Wednesdays, thus reducing the settlement Wednesday effect in fed funds rates. Our empirical results provide strong support for our hypothesis.

Revisiting The Ethics Of Financial Executives In The Lodging Industry, James W. Damitio, Raymond S. Schmidgall

Hospitality Review

This study revisited ethics in the hospitality industry and involved a randomly selected sample of lodging financial executives taken from the current membership roster of the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP). After responding to a number of demographic questions, financial executives were asked to respond to 16 business scenarios that involved the issue of ethics. In addition, financial executives were asked if they would or would not do what the controller did in each scenario. Finally, responses of financial executives in the current study were compared to the responses of financial executives in a previous study. Findings indicate that …

Prior Debt And The Cost Of Going Public, Steven D. Dolvin, Merk K. Pyles

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

Previous studies find that firms with prior debt, particularly publicly rated, have lower information asymmetry and experience a lower opportunity cost of going public, as measured by underpricing. Subsequent research suggests that underpricing may be an inaccurate measure of indirect issuance costs. Thus, we replicate and extend existing studies to examine whether previously issued debt reduces the true opportunity cost of issuance. We find that private debt issues have little effect; however, firms with public debt (particularly rated) have both significantly lower levels of underpricing and lower issuance opportunity costs, as well as narrower filing ranges and smaller price revisions, …