Economics Commons^™

Essay 1: How We Feel: The Role Of Macro-Economic Sentiment In Advertising Spending-Sales Relationship; Essay 2: It Was The Best Of Times; It Was The Worst Of Times: The Effect Of Emotional Uncertainty And Arousal On Healthy Food Choices, Leila Khoshghadam

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Essay 1: Controversies regarding the advertising spending-sales relationship have spawned many studies in marketing. Previous research on macroeconomic influencers of this relationship has focused mostly on objective macroeconomic indicators such as cyclical contraction and expansion. Extending these previous studies, the current research argues that sales response to advertising is also contingent upon the pervasive feelings present in the macroeconomic environment, above and beyond the influence from objective macroeconomic factors. Specifically, it argues that future outlook negativity and uncertainty in macroeconomic sentiment can affect the ad spending-sales relationship. Analyzing sales and advertising spending data for salty snacks in conjunction with macroeconomic …

Two Essays On Earnings Quality And Corporate Decisions, Qian Sun

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation investigates how earnings quality as an information risk may facilitate our understanding of the choice of payment method in mergers and acquisitions and the value and the level of corporate cash holdings. In a world of asymmetric information and agency problem, Poor earnings quality implies the inadequate supply of relevant and reliable information for investors to monitor and discipline the behavior of firm managers to act in shareholder and stakeholder's best interest.

This study contributes to the literature in three folds. First, I add to the literature by postulating that earnings quality has a significant impact on the …

Two Essays On Ipo Earnings Management, Yong Sun

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation includes two essays that study initial public offerings (IPO) earnings management. The first essay examines the underwriter's certification and monitoring roles in IPO earnings management; the second essay explores the relation between IPO earnings management and post-IPO institutional ownership.

In the first essay, we investigate the certification role played by underwriters. We hypothesize that there is a negative relation between IPO earnings management and underwriter reputation and that there is a positive relation between underwriter reputation and firm operating performance. In addition, underwriters continue providing monitoring to the firms they take public. Using a sample of IPOs, we …

Two Essays On Lead-Lag Patterns Between Trading Volume And Stock Return In China Stock Markets, Xiaotian Zhu

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation systematically investigate the lead-lag relations between the trading volume and stock return patterns in China A share and B share markets through two streams of behavioral postulations. In the first part, we summarize all the potential lead-lag patterns between trading volume and stock returns and link them to the corresponding behavioral explanations. In particular, Lee and Swaminathan's (2000) Momentum Life Cycle theory best explains the strong negative relations between lagged trading volume and subsequent return in China A share market. The strong positive relations between lagged market return and subsequent trading volume found in both China's B share …

Three Essays On Real Estate Investment Trusts, Yan Lin

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

This dissertation includes three essays that study on Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). The first essay examines the shape of market demand curve by employing REIT equity fund flows as a proxy for REIT aggregate demand. An empirical framework is introduced to disentangle the price-pressure effect and the information effect. We do not find evidence for the price-pressure effect, which states that REIT equity fund flows directly affect REIT market prices. Instead, we find that the performance of REIT market prices does influence REIT equity fund flows. The results indicate that investors adjust their demand for REITs by investigating and …

Essay I. Intra-Industry Contagion And Competitive Effects Associated With Corporate Liquidation Announcements: Does Shareholder Governance Influence The Results? Essay Ii. Investors' Pricing Of Exchange Rate Risk In U. S. Firms That File For Bankruptcy, J. Terry Ray

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Essay I. Intra-industry contagion and competitive effects associated with corporate liquidation announcements: Does shareholder governance influence the results? This essay extends earlier research by investigating the role shareholder governance may play in the abnormal stock returns of the liquidating firms' competitors. The empirical model used for analyzing the abnormal returns includes variables to capture the influence of: leverage, Tobin's q, the Herfindahl index, Book Equity-to-Market Equity ratio, the level of institutional stock ownership, and the level of stock ownership by insiders.

The conclusion is leverage of the liquidating firm as well as its competitors is the major factor affecting the …