Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Zero Textbook Cost Syllabus For Fin 4093 (Corporate Credit Risk), Michele Costello

Open Educational Resources

The course will provide students with an overview of key concepts in corporate credit risk through the lens of a commercial banking risk analyst. Students will be assigned a company to follow throughout the semester and will be required to use the tools of the course to build their own credit rating analysis in a term paper due at the end of the semester. Topics including country risk, industry risk, market risk, business risk (financial and management), and structure risk will be explored through lectures, industry publications, and access to industry analysis and tools. Upon completion of this course, students …

Essays On Bank Acquisitions And Systemic Risk, Farindokht Vaghefi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of two chapters on bank acquisitions and systemic risk.

Chapter 1: This chapter explores whether bank acquisitions are associated with systemic risk-shifting. Acquisitions can form larger and more diversified firms and, as such, increase the correlation of the acquirer's investment with other banks and subsequently the probability of their joint failure. This can be beneficial for the acquirer due to (implicit) government ``too-many-to-fail'' guarantees. I find that bank acquisitions on average lead to an increase in acquires' systemic risk, which is in turn associated with an increase in firm value for non-distressed acquisitions. Interestingly, congruent with the …

New Perspectives About Financial Intermediation: Disruption By Senior Managers And Financial Technologies, Yu Shan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that span managerial styles, financial technologies, and social interactions.

Chapter 1 Banks increase credit risk-taking in syndicated bank loans when their systemic risk increases; however, the interrelationship across risks depends on bank managerial styles. Using a connectedness sampling method to differentiate patterns of business policy styles and systemic risk-taking among managers, I find that credit risk-taking is more sensitive to the bank's systemic risk if the manager exhibits a preference for systemic risk. Asset-innovating managers (exhibiting a preference for non-traditional forms of income and assets) take higher credit risk in their loan portfolios, but …

Could An Alternative Policy Design Have Produced A Stronger Mortgage Modification Outcome For Hamp?, Sean Macdonald

Publications and Research

This paper conducts a study of the relative effectiveness of the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) - the primary federal mortgage loan modification program - from early 2009 through 2016. It evaluates U.S. Treasury Department and other data sources, and reviews the recent literature on the relative success of the program. The analysis suggests that HAMP’s success rate in modifying mortgage loans was likely constrained by its voluntary design, a structure that enabled lenders and servicers to prioritize the interests of investors in assessing the risks of modification. It then considers the economic issues surrounding the foreclosure issue and presents …

Three Essays On Capital Structure And Cross-Listing, Saeed Ghasseminejad

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation includes three chapters. Chapter one examines the effect of economic sanctions on firms and financial markets. Chapter two studies the effect of culture on cross-listing and CEO turnover. Chapter three looks at how geography influences capital structure.

Chapter 1 This paper is the first comprehensive analysis of economic sanctions and measures the effect of imposing and lifting sanctions on the target country's exchange-listed, publicly traded firms and examines how the impact of sanctions on deep state-owned firms differs from their impact on other firms. The paper uses the case of Iran because of its developed financial markets, the …

Essays On Institutional Ownership And Corporate Finance, Qijian Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that span earnings management, innovation, and insider trading.

Chapter 1: Prior literature finds that earnings management is negatively correlated with institutional ownership. The question is whether institutional investors drive down earnings management of the firms they invest in, or they choose firms with lower earnings management. In this paper, I use the regression discontinuity design around Russell 1000 and 2000 indexes reconstruction to obtain an exogenous variation in institutional ownership. I find that institutional investors do not drive down earnings management after they become shareholders. Instead, institutions choose firms with lower earnings management level …

Transformational Leadership And Supply Chain Ambidexterity: Mediating Role Of Supply Chain Organizational Learning And Moderating Role Of Uncertainty, Divesh Ojha, Chandan Acharya, Danielle Cooper

Publications and Research

This paper examines the impact of top management transformational leadership on supply chain organizational learning and supply chain ambidexterity. We also evaluate the influence of uncertainty, present in the operating environment, on these relationships. Integrating multiple perspectives of organizational behavior relating to learning and leadership, we develop our research model and evaluate it using survey data. Results from our analysis support the notion that supply chain organizational learning orientations fully mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and supply chain ambidexterity. Also, uncertainty in the operating environment positively moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and supply chain learning.

Business Economics: Data For Decision Making, Brian Barnier, Kevin Foster

Open Educational Resources

Syllabus for a course in data analytics for business economics, focusing on use of source data sets to answer the "why?" questions hidden in aggregate averages used in theory and "headline" news releases. Zero cost course using data available widely on the web. Optional texts are trade books available widely in libraries or used copies at low cost.

Mlb Rule Iv Draft: Valuing Draft Pick Slots, Anthony Cacchione

Dissertations and Theses

This study explored the Net Present Value (NPV) in dollar terms of draft pick slots in the Major League Rule IV Draft. In order to accomplish this, the cumulative performance of players selected in each slot within the draft was evaluated and brought to the Present Value of the time they were selected using a discount rate. The performance of the players was determined using the baseball-reference Wins Above Replacement (WAR) metric. It is intuitive that earlier draft picks are the most valuable; however, it is unclear how quickly the value of draft picks decline. This research demonstrates that the …

What Bitcoin Is, And How It Can Change Commerce, Jeffrey Bukhari

Capstones

The use of the digital currency Bitcoin has spiked dramatically over the last several years. Spurred by interest from investors and those excited about its commercial and banking potential, the value of the cryptocurrency has seen its value greatly increase since its beginning in 2009.

This project explains the underlying technology behind Bitcoin, how Bitcoin is and will change commerce, and what potential lies ahead for the digital currency.

Surplus Consumption, Habit Utility And Moody Investors, Jun Lou

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The thesis examines a blend of Asset Pricing topics: joint stock-bond pricing, consumption-based asset pricing puzzles, time variation in risk preference, among others. In chapter one, I first review the literature on respective topics in search of a consolidated framework of resolution. I then propose one, a consumption-based affine model that jointly prices bond and stock in closed form. The tractable feature of the price solutions remains standard as in affine termstructure of interest rates, but presents novelty for the stock prices. In chapter two, I discuss the GMM based procedures for model estimation. In chapter three, I interpret the …

Essays On Capital Structure And Public Debt Markets, Viktoriya Staneva

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine capital structure determinants as well as the evolution of credit rating standards in the market for public debt.

Chapter 1 This chapter shows that firm fixed effects in panel leverage regressions act as a noisy proxy for managerial effects that drive persistence in leverage. Firms that do not change their CEO for prolonged periods of time are more likely to keep debt ratios within a narrow bandwidth and to display persistent differences in their time-series averages for up to 20 years. A CEO turnover is associated with considerable modifications to the financing …

Volatility Analysis Of Us Equity And Federal Funds Markets Through The Recent Financial Crisis And Recovery Periods, Based On Release Of Fomc Meeting Statements And Minutes, Hanxiao Yue

Student Theses and Dissertations

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is the principal maker of monetary policy in the United States. The main instrument of monetary policy is the target federal funds rate, which is de facto the base interest rate of the US economy. The FOMC meets around eight times a year to discuss the economic outlook and decide on this metric. Throughout most of its history, the Fed has been opaque about how it decides on monetary policy, but in recent years it has adopted a more transparent disclosure policy. For each FOMC meeting, it currently releases a brief statement immediately after …

Essays In Corporate Responsibility And Finance, Mert Demir

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters:

Chapter 1: The Effects of Corporate Social Performance and Social Norms on Market Valuation of Nonfinancial Disclosures Using a novel measure of the quality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures by global companies, this paper analyzes how CSR report quality affects firm value when mediating roles of social pressure and CSR performance are considered. I find that firms operating in socially controversial industries enjoy higher valuations when they issue high-quality CSR reports. I also find that for firms with poor CSR performance, higher-quality CSR disclosure is associated with a decline in firm value, while …

Spend Your Student Loans On A Vacation. No One Is Watching., Raul A. Hernandez, Morten Buttler

Capstones

Student loan debtors who spend their loans on non-educational expenses   increase the likelihood of financial hardship once they begin repayment. Contributing to the financial struggles of student loan debtors is an overly-complicated student loan system which can entangle borrowers with unclear financial statements and a glut of federal loan repayment programs.

Link to capstone project: https://medium.com/@raul.hernandez/spend-your-student-loans-on-a-vacation-no-one-is-watching-a71834ed6f45#.vj61hhxig

The Timeliness Of State And Local Governments By Gasb: An Evaluation Of Efficacy Of Financial Reports, Achraf Seyam, Alexander Hinners, Lauren Freire, Victor Parbat

Publications and Research

In March 2011, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued a research brief titled “The Timeliness of Financial Reporting by State and Local Governments Compared with the Needs of Users.” This study formally exposed an apparent gap between the time-of-issuance of governmental financial reports and their usefulness according to a large and diverse group of survey participants. According to the GASB in the aforementioned report, nearly a quarter of the government entities take longer than six months to issue their annual reports, with many evidencing release times of a year or more. Comparatively, the users surveyed indicated that report usefulness …

Essays On Institutional Investor Trading, Karolina Krystyniak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine the role of institutional investors in stock market efficiency. Institutions are important and influential market participants. This study aims to analyze whether institutional investor trading is consistent with higher attention and better skill, what is the impact of institutional trading on future asset prices and how does institutional trading relate to the liquidity in the market.

The first chapter of the dissertation analyzes institutional investors’ response to stock level liquidity shocks. I find that institutions, especially the transient ones, buy stocks that experience positive liquidity shocks and sell those that experience negative …

Essays On Investor Attention, Hongqi Liu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine investor attention and its impact on corporate events and asset prices using a Google search-based measure of investor attention.

Chapter 1 This chapter investigates investor attention patterns and its determinants. I document that investor attention displays strong seasonality. It is significantly lower on Fridays and in summer months. I find that investor attention increases significantly following earnings announcements and macro news releases, and the effect is stronger for large firms. When faced with both firm-specific and market-wide information shocks, investors’ attention response to firm-specific information attenuates and their trading behavior is also …

Hunting For Financial Literacy, Georgia Sozou

Theses and Dissertations

This paper summarizes and explores the results of a survey conducted at Hunter College of the City University of New York that surveys 211 students. It examines the relationships between the students’ individual characteristics, previous personal finance education and the levels of financial literacy of the Hunter College population.

The New Requirements Relating To Going Concern Evaluation And Disclosure Provide A Critical Improvement To The Financial Statements Taken As A Whole, Achraf A. Seyam, Sharon Brickman

Publications and Research

The going concern principle assumes that an entity will continue to exist into the future. This assumption implies that the entity will not be compelled to end their operations, liquidate their assets, or go into bankruptcy. It is an integral assumption in financial statements since it allows for the deferral of recognition of certain expenses until a period of time into the future, when the company is still assumed to exist. Members of management, as well as financial statement auditors, are required to identify signs that could indicate that an entity will not be able to continue their operations into …

Technical Analysis Under Knightian Uncertainty, Andre Mouton

Student Theses and Dissertations

Technical analysis, or the forecasting of asset price movements using past prices, is commonly practiced in financial markets but poorly explained by mainstream economic theory. I show that a technical rule can have predictive power when an asset’s payoffs are subject to Knightian uncertainty, defined as variation that cannot be described probabilistically (Knight, 1921). I present an asset-pricing model in which asset payoffs undergo periodic shifts in trend, and agents form expectations about these payoffs using a constant gain least squares (CGLS) rule. I investigate whether a second CGLS rule, operating on price, can provide a more accurate forecast of …

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, …

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 …

The Shadow Banking System In The United States, Bhakti Joshi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 2008 the United States suffered a devastating economic collapse. Millions of Americans were unemployed; families lost their homes; and long time businesses were forced to shut down. These events put the United States into an economic depression so deep that the country has yet to fully recover. The crisis was not a natural disaster but varieties of private sector agents such as banks and hedge funds were responsible for its efficient cause. Even though the housing and stock bubbles were generated largely by market forces rather than by government policies, the US government policies and institutions also played a …

Dynamic Asset Allocation: A Bayesian Approach, Yalan Feng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The first half of this dissertation consists of two essays addressing dynamic asset allocation problem by exploring time-varying volatility and covariance between different assets.

In the first essay, I propose a time-varying Bayesian approach based on autoregressive models. To allow a parsimonious specification while improving predictive power, I specify a step function that considerably decreases the number of parameters to be estimated. To reduce data dimensionality, I use orthogonal portfolios instead of correlated assets in estimation and forecast. Finally, a Bayesian estimation is applied to dynamically update coefficients and error variance. I combine Bayesian time-varying autoregression with step function restriction …

Studies In Volatility, Nazli Sila Alan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of five chapters that focus on the price discovery role of equity markets and examine the evolution of intraday stock price volatility as a key measure of market quality. Using six differentiated measures of intraday volatility (that mostly focus on the opening half-hour of trading), all common stocks listed at three stock exchanges with varying levels of fragmentation are analyzed: NYSE and NASDAQ stocks over the period 1993-2012, and Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) stocks over the period 2000-2011.

The results on the evolution of intraday volatility presented in Chapters 2 and 3 indicate the following: In 1993, …

Essays On Financial Market Volatility: Applications Of Time-Varying Dynamics, Emily Johnston

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines time-variation in asset volatility surrounding periods of financial market distress. In the first chapter we give a brief introduction of the overall theme of the project, and we outline the models used. The next chapters individually focus on the application of time-varying volatility to important themes in the literature. These include: the behavior of investor risk preferences across periods of stability and distress; inconsistencies in options pricing with regard to the behavior of the underlying asset; and the characterization of time-varying volatility dynamics in equity returns.

The second chapter of this dissertation examines the impact of changing …

Economies And Cultures Can’T Be Separated, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Expert: Reasons For Debt Partly Cultural, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Financial Services Consolidation And Performance In New York State Savings And Loan Associations, 2000-2011, Mine Aysen Doyran

Publications and Research

The market structure-performance relationship has been tested for US banking in industrial organization studies. Two divergent hypotheses with regard to this relationship are the Structure-Conduct-Performance (SCP) Paradigm and Efficient Structure Hypothesis (ESH). This paper presents the test results of both hypotheses with respect to the New York State S&L associations using the time-series and cross sectional (firm-level) data for the most recent period 2000-2010. The results of PEGLS regression indicate that performances of S&Ls vary with respect to operating cost, credit risk and capitalization. Neither market share nor concentration, however, plays a significant role in explaining profitability. The results partially …