Business Commons^™

Essays On Disclosure And Individual Investors, Yakun Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Essay 1: Using data from StockTwits.com, the most popular investment-dedicated social media network in the US, I develop new and direct measures of investors' aggregate attention to the stock market, and to individual stocks. I then examine the behavior of investors' aggregate attention and firm-specific attention. First, I show that investors' aggregate attention to the stock market is higher during earnings season than non-earnings season, but is not lower on Fridays compared to other weekdays. Second, I show that investors' firm-specific attention is positively related to Earnings Response Coefficients (ERCs) and negatively related to Post Earnings Announcement Drift (PEAD), indicating …

Earnings Forecast And Stock Recommendation By Security Analysts, Cunyu Xing

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of 3 chapters.

Chapter 1: Last Minute Earning Forecast Revision

Chapter 2: Security Analysts' Double Down Behavior in Stock Recommendation

Chapter 3: Cost of Speaking in Two Different Tongues

Chapter 1: I study financial analysts who revise their earnings forecasts just a few days before firms' earnings announcement. Analysts who apply this strategy are more accurate in their earnings forecasts, and they are more likely to move to a larger brokerage firm. All-star analysts are more likely to take this last minute revision strategy than non-all-star analysts. All-star analysts using the strategy are likely to maintain their …

Auditor Size And Audit Quality: A Partner-Level Perspective, Yu Zhou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines the effect of auditor size on audit quality at the level of audit partners. Auditor size is defined by three criteria: the wealth of the audit partners; the size of the partners' client portfolios; and the number of audit partners in the firm. Using data from China, where disclosure of the identity of the engagement audit partner is required, I hypothesize and find that the personal wealth of an audit partner has two effects on audit quality: the income effect and the substitution effect. The Chinese audit market is particularly suited to study these two effects. Prior …

The Role Of Financial Reporting Quality In The Selection Of New Audit Committee Member, Dongliang Lei

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Prior studies investigating the selection of audit committee members (ACMs) often focus on board-level and director demographic characteristics. In this paper, I investigate whether boards select new ACMs from corporate environments with similar financial reporting quality. Using the appointee firm's financial report quality as a proxy for new ACMs' financial reporting attributes, I find that firms are more likely to appoint new ACMs with financial reporting attributes similar to firms' financial reporting culture for a sample of 275 new ACM appointments from 2007 to 2011. I find that firms appointing ACMs with relatively weak (strong) financial reporting attributes are more …

Exploring Antecedents, Performance Outcomes And Psychological Processes Of Multi-Device Use, Chi-Wen Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Given the widespread use of multiple devices (such as desktop computers, smartphones, and tablets) in performing a task, systematic, theoretic, and empirical studies pertaining to motivations regarding, performance outcomes, and attitudes toward multi-device use have become essential. Despite the increasing importance of multi-device use, research remains scarce regarding this topic.

To comprehensively understand the issues of multi-device use, this dissertation comprises three complementary studies, each of which focuses on a different aspect of multi-device use: Given the availability of multiple devices, what are the motivations behind multi-device use as opposed to the use of only one device to complete a …

Essays On International Payout, Governance, And Information, Richard Clifton Herron

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of four chapters that span international payout policy, firm- and country-level governance, and information in capital markets.

Chapter 1: This chapter tests if information gathered by investment bankers during a firm's initial public offering (IPO) creates value in a subsequent acquisition of that same firm. In a sample of 1,519 all-public acquisitions, for 54 of these acquisitions the target's IPO underwriter later becomes the acquirer's adviser. These "same adviser" acquisitions outperform, with three-day acquirer cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) that are 4% higher, all else equal. This outperformance is through both better acquisitions and better prices, and combined …

Bank Monitoring: Impact On Equity Reit Risk And Return, Mariya Letdin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The first half of this paper studies the impact of bank screening on the risk of asset collateral pledged against secured loans for a sample of US equity REITs. Using a unique, hand-collected data sample, I show that bank screening results in lower risk assets being pledged as collateral, a finding confirmed by property type risk and location risk. Further, I find evidence consistent with the role of monitoring for secured, non-recourse mortgage loans. Finally, examining risk at the company level, I find that screening and monitoring of REITss assets via utilizing secured mortgage financing (as opposed to unsecured, recourse …

Essays On The Impacts Of Quantitative Easing On Financial Markets, Joanne Guo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Due to the severity of the financial crisis of 2008, the Federal Reserve had attempted a variety of unconventional monetary policy to support the U.S. financial markets at the verge of collapse. The most well-known of the Fed's unconventional monetary policy is quantitative easing, in which it purchased a large amount of government securities from the markets in order to lower longer term interest rates and mortgage rates. The several rounds of quantitative easing had different impacts, intended as well as unintended, on U.S. financial markets and foreign markets. The purpose of this paper is to fully explore the effects, …

Explorations Of Perceived Product Efficacy, Veronika Ilyuk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Prior research has largely treated perceived product efficacy as a one-dimensional construct. This research uniquely demonstrates that perceived product efficacy is comprised of several dimensions and focuses on one previously unexplored dimension that has significant implications for consumption frequency: perceived duration of product efficacy. The current research shows that consumers make biased duration judgments of product efficacy: consumers make shorter (vs. longer) duration judgments when they perceive a concurrent task to be relatively difficult (vs. easy). The effect of perceived task difficulty on duration judgments of product efficacy is (1) established with energy-enhancing products and medication, (2) shown to be …

The New York Philharmonic Strike Of 1973, Kuan Cheng Lu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The New York Philharmonic Strike of 1973 is a story waiting to be told. The sole volume to mention it, John Canarina's The New York Philharmonic, devotes less than two pages to it. Until now, the full story has lain buried in archival documents, newspaper articles, and the memories of those who experienced it firsthand. This document represents the first comprehensive examination of this event. The research upon which it is based consists of: interviews with the New York Philharmonic members; research in the New York Philharmonic Archives; newspaper articles and reviews. The results are presented here in three …

It-Enabled Coordination In Electronic Markets: An Experimental Investigation Of The Effects Of Social Communication On Group Buyers, Alexander Pelaez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Coordination, and the mechanisms by which coordination occurs, represents a significant area of study for economic research, and information technology. Technology enhances communication in both speed and quantity of information and when aligned with appropriate tasks can improve decision-making and task performance. Examining the effect of technology based coordination mechanisms on market platforms provides insight into outcomes as represented by buyer surplus and task completion as well as behaviors, such as network structure and emotional attitudes in economic experiments. Drawing on theory from economics and information systems, larger buyer groups should be able to obtain better prices and extract higher …

Essays On Real Estate Investment Trusts, Jiajin Chen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is composed with two essays on real estate investment trusts. The first chapter examines REIT IPOs initial-day, short-run and long-run performance using a large sample of 370 REIT IPOs from four continents (14 different countries) during the 1996-2010 period. The result shows that (1) the newly-established REITs in other countries exhibit similar initial-day return pattern as in the U.S., (2) the low initial-day return might be caused by the fund-like structure of REITs together with the real estate assets they hold, (3) the slightly positive initial-day return is offset by the poor performance in the 190-day days subsequent …