Business Commons^™

Is Seeing Believing? How Television Advertisements Influence Investment Decisions, Lucas Selb

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Stock returns are influenced by many factors. Finance scholars have attempted to examine the potential causes of stock price changes by comparing the observed returns of stocks after an event with the predicted returns they should have experienced had the event not occurred. The current “Super Bowl-Stock Returns” studies tend to find conflicting results regarding whether the returns of Super Bowl advertisers’ stocks deviate from their predicted values during the trading days following the Super Bowl, as well as the direction in which these returns deviate and why they deviate. This study uses a more precise model for estimating predicted …

Jargon To Jackpot: The Financial Impact Of Infusing Pop Culture References In Social Media, Madelynn Solow

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This research explores the impact of incorporating pop culture references in a company's Twitter feed on the company's stock price. Pop culture is integral to people's everyday lives, providing a sense of familiarity and fun between individuals. Many companies have started leveraging pop culture references on social media platforms like Twitter to establish a relatable and engaging connection with diverse consumer demographics. The primary purpose of this research is to investigate whether this strategy is beneficial within the stock market. It is hypothesized that incorporating pop culture references on Twitter can lead to increased sales and higher stock prices, as …

Nfl Rule Changes Favor Offenses; But Don't Defenses Win Championships?, Kipp Satterlee Ransome

Business and Economics Honors Papers

The NFL's emphasis on favoring the offense through implementing new game rules is likely a significant factor in increasing a team's average points per game. Additionally, an increasing average points per game metric is likely a contributing factor to increasing real team revenue, as prior research indicates that higher-scoring games lead to higher fan satisfaction. Using game, team revenue, and rule implementation data from the 2002-2022 seasons, this author tests two new hypotheses that test whether specific rule changes targeting defenses or special teams increase a team’s average points per game and whether an increased points per game metric positively …

Japan: Where Did All The People Go? An Empirical Study On Economic And Social Impacts On Low Fertility In Japan, Sasha Heasley

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This project analyzed potential impacts on the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in Japan (2010 and 2015), which is dealing with both a declining population and an ageing population in parallel. Results indicate that income per person has the largest impact on TFR, and it is highly considered when making fertility decisions. Results also show that government policies are largely ineffective in impacting TFR. Results were obtained through two panel regressions and two Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions, in which TFR was the dependent variable.

Do Students Buy Attention-Grabbing Stocks? A Field Experiment, George Psaradakis

Business and Economics Honors Papers

In this paper, we look to find out whether or not student investors are drawn to “attention-grabbing” stocks. We define “attention-grabbing” stocks as those that are issued by companies with either large numbers of Twitter followers, large general marketing budgets, or both. Our theory is that the more followers that a publicly traded company has on Twitter and/or the more money the company spends on marketing and advertising, the more likely a student would be to invest in its stock.

A field experiment was conducted in which undergraduate students constructed their own virtual stock portfolios. A treatment group was given …

Covid-19: The Impact Of A Nation’S Political Economic Structure On Its Labor Market Spending Policies, Mary Margaret Baldy

Business and Economics Honors Papers

The onslaught of COVID-19 in March 2020 claimed the lives of millions and caused a global economic downturn marked by vast unemployment. Previous research has focused on how fiscal policy is utilized by advanced developed nations and their objectives with respect to fiscal policy. This paper aims to examine how a given nation’s labor market spending policies are impacted by its political economic structure. In order to delineate between and analyze the approaches of different political economic structures, this paper utilizes Nordic, Liberal, and Asian States constructs. In order to investigate the impact of political economic structure on labor market …

Sunk Or Dunk?: An Empirical Analysis Of The Effect Of Sunk Cost Fallacy In Professional Basketball, Hailey Dicicco

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This project is divided into two sections. The first section is a comparison between the NBA and WNBA, using performance metrics from game statistics. Using performance characteristics, an empirical analysis was used to determine if the number of minutes played was determined by consistent parameters across these organizations. This finding showed inconsistency. The WNBA showed higher valuation for blocks, steals, and assists while the NBA showed higher valuation for three-point percentages and defensive rebounds.

The second section of the paper evaluates the sunk cost fallacy and its impacts in the NBA. The WNBA was not able to be included in …

Stock Market Drivers: Corporate Share Repurchases, Parker Wolf

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Such financial tools as share buybacks are coming under scrutiny by many investment experts. Evidence suggests that share repurchases foster a short-term focus in corporate managers who have a share-based compensation. Recent studies and research draw attention to the negative consequences of corporate share repurchases. While share buybacks were originally intended to create financial value for intrinsically undervalued shares, they are increasingly coming under scrutiny for enabling shareholders to increase their value of wealth at the expense of other stakeholders. With increased stock option plans for corporate executives, the association between increase in open market share buyback activity and compensation …

Is Tuition Free College The Golden Ticket? A Time Series Analysis Of Germany’S Higher Education Policy, 1990-2017, Hannah Wolfram

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Countries which have been able to offer free tertiary education are being applauded while the United States tries to find a way to rectify its high tertiary education costs. Germany has accomplished a system of subsidized higher education since the 1950s, making it seem highly successful. In order to investigate the potential benefits of subsidized higher education, this study uses a time series regression analysis to investigate the relationship between tertiary unemployment rate and public spending as a share of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Germany over the period 1990-2017. The regression analysis corrected for multi-collinearity and serial correlation, …

Shattering Glass Ceilings: Where Are All Of The Women In Finance?, Rebecca Schubach

Business and Economics Honors Papers

At a time when women are equally represented in professional fields such as medicine and academia, the finance industry is still facing a lack of gender diversity, most notability at the C-Suite level. Statistics on the paucity of women paint a bleak picture, despite the fact that women are awarded majority of undergraduate and graduate degrees in the United States, a reversal from just one generation ago. This begs the question, what is deterring women from a career in finance? Are compensation discrepancies at play? This paper seeks to examine if being a female truly penalizes a woman in regards …

Bringing Business Back To The Ballpark, David Drea

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This study uses ordinary least squares and quantile regressions to discover the determinants of total attendance for Major League Baseball teams. Furthermore, the study seeks to discover whether or not the average time length of a baseball game has any significant effect on total attendance. The data ranges from the year 2016 until 2018 and includes all thirty professional teams. The purpose of the quantile regression is to gain a deeper understanding of total attendance’s determinants and to see which distributions in the data are most affected. The results were that home runs are a significant stimulant in attendance and …

Planting The Seeds Of Security: The Influence Of Agricultural Products On Food Security Levels In U.S. Counties, Vanessa R. Scalora

Business and Economics Honors Papers

The United States produces, imports, and widely distributes incredible amounts of food every day. Despite the country’s abundance and availability of food, a prevalence of people with low food security levels exists. In 2015, 42.2 million U.S. citizens, including children, lived in food insecure households. The source of food insecurity is complexly rooted in the mechanics of America’s economic and food systems. Understanding that the fundamental causes of food insecurity are systemic, this study focuses on the impact of one of these potential elements: agriculture. Using economic analysis, this research explores the relationship between various agriculture products and food insecurity …

Students Today Into Entrepreneurs Tomorrow: The Impact Of Major Choice On Grit And Risk Aversion, Keith D. Larkin

Business and Economics Honors Papers

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than half of all start-ups in the US fail before their fifth year in operation (BLS, 2010). As a result, since the mid-1980s, colleges and universities nationwide have continued to increase opportunities and funding to improve entrepreneurial education. Yet, little is known about how the choices students make during their time in college, like major choice, impact personality traits that are beneficial to entrepreneurship. Specifically, these traits are grit and risk aversion. The theoretically successful entrepreneurs are able to be committed to goals and remain motivated despite setbacks. Simultaneously they must maintain …

Trading Ahead Of Bad News: Evidence From Short-Sales Of Stocks And The Options Market, Nicholas E. Macksoud

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Throughout the past ten years, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued hundreds of enforcement actions in the electric, natural gas, and petroleum industries. The vast majority of these citations have been violations of environmental statutes, notably the Clean Air Act (CAA) and the Clean Water Act (CWA). My research evaluates the timing of informed investors’ actions pertaining to the public release of these EPA announcements. Since informed traders have much more leverage in the options market, there seems likely to be a concentration of abnormal put option activity shortly before the time in which the announcements reach …

Did Antebellum Illinois Free Banks Take Undue Risk With Their Bond Portfolios?: An Analysis Of Decision-Making Prior To The Civil War, Scott N. Clayman

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Free banks in Illinois could issue bank notes backed by state or U.S. bond collateral. A decline in bond prices as the Civil War approached resulted in banks being unable to redeem their noteholders in gold specie and subsequently resulted in bank failures. Previously economic historians believed that failures of free banks were due to wildcat banking rather than the portfolio allocation of free banks. Over time, other researchers have found that banks that took greater ex ante risk prior to the failure were more likely to fail. There were other price declines during the 1850s, in particular the Panic …

Choosing The Right Steps: Management Decisions Of Dance Businesses, Jessica B. Rosina

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Fundamental dance researchers have found that dancers have some of the lowest Human Capital returns. Today, the average dancer has a median pay of $15.87. Only six percent of public schools offer dance as a part of their curriculum. This situation poses a threat to the transmission of culture in our country and will have negative impacts. Children receive little to no dance education in public schooling, leaving private dance education organizations as the only option left. Using a sample of 100 privately owned studios in the tristate area, business decisions will be analyzed to uncover the impact on enrollment.

Is Geographic Diversification Associated With Increased Risk? Evidence From The Spanish Banking Crisis, Briana Anderson

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This paper examines the association between geographic diversification and Spanish savings bank (caja) failure. The paper focuses on the geographic expansion of cajas between 2002 and 2012 and failure of several cajas between 2008 and 2011 during the Spanish banking crisis. Employing financial statement and branch location data collected from the CECA, logit models were used to test the association between failure and geographic and cultural diversification. This paper finds that, depending on the model estimated, geographic and cultural diversification of cajas either reduced or had no effect on the odds ratio of failure, suggesting that the benefits …

What Effect Do Corporate Governance Characteristics Have On Ceo Compensation In A Small Cap Firm?, Kiley Stauffer

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Extensive research has been conducted to examine the effect that corporate governance structure has on CEO compensation. Past studies have focused primarily on larger corporations and have neglected smaller public firms. By shifting focus to small cap firms, this study hopes to find patterns between CEO compensation and specific corporate governance components. These include CEO duality, the presence of a dual founder CEO, and the level of equity ownership held by the CEO. Empirical evidence has suggested that CEO duality and increased ownership equity of a dual founder CEO may significantly impact CEO compensation.

The Look Of The Line: An Empirical Investigation Of The Impacts Of Facial Symmetry On Salary Levels Of Offensive Linemen In The Nfl, Kristen Wampole

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Evaluation of a professional athlete's performance for the purposes of compensation determination is difficult, especially when decision making may not follow the expected "instrumental rationality." This paper will look to examine the factors, both productive and non-productive, impacting an Offensive Lineman's salary in the NFL. The purpose of this study is to determine whether an offensive lineman's salary is based on productive characteristics adhering to instrumental rationality, or whether the influence of non-productive characteristics influence salary as ultimately determined by team management. Results indicate that players within the tackle position with earning salaries in the seventy-fifth percentile gain additional benefits …

Does Race Influence Executive Compensation In Chinese Firms?, Elizabeth Mahoney

Business and Economics Honors Papers

In this study, we considered the effects of Chinese cultural and political influences on executive compensation in Chinese firms. The chief focus of this study is on whether the race of executives or the racial composition of the compensation committee affects the average compensation of executives, though other factors such as sales, industry, and compensation committee size were also included in the model. Data was collected from Chinese firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange, with data for the companies gathered for the year 2009 and executive salaries collected for the year 2010.

The Death Of Music Videos?: An Analysis On The Effectiveness Of Music Videos As A Promotional Tool, Carmen Cheng

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This research explored whether or not music videos remained an effective marketing tool for the music industry after the diffusion of the Internet in American culture. As a result of the transitions in media through which music videos were distributed, this project asked the following research questions: 1. What impact has the airing of music videos on MTV had on music sales? 2. What was the impact of music videos on sales when music videos moved from airing on television to being distributed over the Internet?

Evaluating The Target Pipeline In A Pharmaceutical Acquisition, Daniel Vass

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Many firms in the pharmaceutical industry turn to acquisitions when faced with gaps in their drug development pipelines and patent expirations as an alternative to making long-term investments in internal research and development. Investors are generally negative on this strategy, and upon the announcement of a pharmaceutical acquisition the stock of the acquiring firm often drops. This decline in share price creates an opportunity for the investor who can identify the characteristics of a target firm that increase the probability that the transaction will ultimately be a success, as measured by the subsequent appreciation in the acquirer's stock. It is …

Stats Or Studs: Does It Pay To Be Good Looking? The Economic Impact Of Lookism, Lisle O'Neill

Business and Economics Honors Papers

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” is a phrase that exemplifies the subjectivity of attractiveness. In recent years, researchers in the fields of economics, sociology, and anaplasty have used symmetry analysis in an attempt to make beauty an objective issue. People characterized by greater facial symmetry, as defined by exhibiting balanced lateral proportions, are considered to be more attractive. Furthermore, labor economists, such as Hamermesh and Biddle (1994), suggest a wage premium for more attractive individuals, however, the measure of attractiveness was not based on symmetry. This study examines the effect of NFL quarterbacks' attractiveness on …

Cheating With Honor, Christian A. Pfeiffer

Business and Economics Honors Papers

The intent of this paper is to understand what leads a student to cheat within the context of a small (enrollment below 2,000 students) liberal arts college. The development of a model will examine cheating from three categories highlighted in the literature: demographics, college culture, and the perception of cheating. Demographics capture relevant personal attributes of a student such as gender, GPA, and major. Cultural variables include variables for the presence of an honor code and participation in a sport or social organization, which provide that student with a unique cultural experience. Perception variables deal with the perceptions the students …

The Effects Of Asset Allocation And Active Management On Total Return Of Managed Funds, Florian Halili

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Portfolio managers are charged with maximizing returns for a given level of risk. There are practical problems that arise in creating an efficient portfolio and maintaining a target level of risk and return. This paper will identify two important factors that a manager needs to address in creating and managing a portfolio. The first step in creating a portfolio should be the establishment of the structure of the portfolio or the portfolio policy, what asset classes it holds and in what proportions. The structure of the portfolio is the main factor that shows how a portfolio is exposed to risk. …

Profit Maximization In The Banking Industry: Early Adoption Of Technology And Its Effects On Efficiencies, John Gulnac

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Technological innovation has restructured the marketplace creating cost advantages in many industries. One industry that has experienced significant change is the banking industry. The widespread applications of Information Technology (IT) complemented with the adoptions of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) have changed the face of the banking industry: by providing banks with the opportunity to improve certain operational efficiencies IT is giving them a competitive advantage in a consolidating industry. Brick and mortar banks are no longer an operational necessity. The banking industry through recent deregulations now has the ability to enter new and previously untapped markets with relatively low entry …

The Role Of Patronage In Public Wage Determination, John Fessick

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Patronage politics and government behavior, in general, lend themselves to economic model building and empirical analysis. They both require human processes to function. They are human institutions - shaped and molded by people. Because human beings are so vital a part of government and the behavior of decision-makers within that institution, assumptions of self-interest and the rational man lead to important implications which are necessary to the understanding and reshaping of government in order for it to work for the "common good." Only by understanding the framework of government and presenting an accurate picture of human behavior within that framework …

A Measurement Of The Economic And Social Impact Of Ursinus College, Jan M. Smith

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This 31 page thesis examines factors involved in estimating the impact of Ursinus College on the boroughs of Collegeville and Trappe.

Assessment Of Economic And Social Benefits Of Day Care And A Budget Proposal For A Hypothetical Day Care Center, Nancy K. Lecrone

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This 31 page thesis examines the history of child care, women in the workforce, and a proposal for a day care center.

The Effects Of Productivity On The American Economy, C. Lee Metzger Jr.

Business and Economics Honors Papers

This 27 page thesis examines the effect of productivity gains on the overall economy of the United States.