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Full-Text Articles in Finance

Dreams And Livelihoods In Rural Areas Require Capital, Too: An Investigation Into The Role Of Diminishing Community Banks, Financial Education, And Access To Capital In Rural Areas, Jackson Walton May 2024

Dreams And Livelihoods In Rural Areas Require Capital, Too: An Investigation Into The Role Of Diminishing Community Banks, Financial Education, And Access To Capital In Rural Areas, Jackson Walton

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

Individuals in rural communities face unprecedented economic challenges due to a lack of financial education and a decline in the prevalence of community banks. These problems have continuously grown exponentially without successful attempt at remedy. The community banks that once served as the center of economic activity and prevalence in rural communities are leaving these communities quickly- leaving many without access to lines of credit, personal relationship banking, and without necessary financial education in a world with more financial options than ever. Access to banking and higher financial literacy proficiency rates are almost directly linked to better financial outcomes like …


More Than A Feeling: Exploring The Drivers Of Music Catalog Values, Emily Nutting Jan 2024

More Than A Feeling: Exploring The Drivers Of Music Catalog Values, Emily Nutting

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines which characteristics of songs affect transaction price in the sale of artist’s music catalogs. My analysis tests many variables, including the number of years between the song’s release its catalog’s sale (age); the natural log of the number of Spotify streams the song has (popularity); the genre of the song; themes in the song, such as dating, violence, romance, obscenity, sadness, and feelings; and elements of the song like danceability, energy, loudness, instrumentalness (the prevalence of instrumentals relative to vocals in a song), and acousticness (the measure of sound made using instruments as opposed to electronic means). …


Nfl Positional Value In Terms Of Salary Cap Spending: Why Are Running Backs Undervalued?, Charlton Jackson Jan 2024

Nfl Positional Value In Terms Of Salary Cap Spending: Why Are Running Backs Undervalued?, Charlton Jackson

CMC Senior Theses

Running Backs over the past two decades have seen a contract value devaluation relative to other positions and the league's salary cap spending limit. The growth of running back salaries has stagnated in the past decade, and they currently fail to keep pace with the contracts for other positions. Through our empirical research, we were able to either reject or better explain existing reasoning for recent running back devaluation, such as the increase in passing volume, durability concerns, and running backs by committee. We found that the most significant change in the past 30 years of the NFL, since the …


Esg Reporting And Its Effect On Financial Performance Of Oil, Gas, And Utility Companies In The United States, Logan Lam Apr 2023

Esg Reporting And Its Effect On Financial Performance Of Oil, Gas, And Utility Companies In The United States, Logan Lam

Honors Theses

According to the Harvard Business Review article ESG Investing Isn’t Designed to Save the Plant (Pucker and King 2022), the term ESG investments – which stands for environmental, social, and governance investing – often confuses investors because it is unregulated. Additionally, the author continued to claim that the data is outdated and mostly unaudited. Even if data on these investments is available to investors, it can still be challenging for them to make decisions regarding ESG. Trusting compatibility and accuracy can be difficult considering that companies can choose how to produce or calculate their own ESG data. Another claim that …


Determinants Of Profitability Of Commercial Bank In Afghanistan, Mohammad Osman Saeedi Jan 2023

Determinants Of Profitability Of Commercial Bank In Afghanistan, Mohammad Osman Saeedi

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Over the past two decades, the global financial sector, particularly the banking industry, has undergone significant transformations impacting its performance. Recognizing the pivotal role of the financial sector in economic growth, this study focuses on Afghanistan's banking sector, tracing its roots to the establishment of the first commercial banking institution, Bank Millie Afghan, in 1933. Following decades of war, the banking sector experienced revitalization after 2001, marked by the emergence of a new government, international aid inflow, and increased business activities. Despite remarkable growth, Afghanistan's banking sector faces challenges such as security concerns, cultural issues, and a developing banking culture. …


Financial Institutions Continue To Adopt Crypto Despite Industry Turmoil, Andre Beganski Dec 2022

Financial Institutions Continue To Adopt Crypto Despite Industry Turmoil, Andre Beganski

Capstones

Even though this calamitous year has raised doubts about crypto's future, not a single large financial institution has backed away from their forays into digital assets. And despite a period of turmoil that’s seen the market value of all cryptocurrencies crater to under $880 billion from over $3 trillion, many sizable firms continue to view crypto as an emerging sector of finance and technology that’s rife with opportunity.

While financial firms have the potential to foster a widespread perception of cryptocurrencies as a legitimate asset class, their involvement runs counter to the intent of those who pioneered blockchain technology for …


Finance And Fear: Sentiment, Media, And Financial Markets During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Alison N. Sommers Jun 2022

Finance And Fear: Sentiment, Media, And Financial Markets During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Alison N. Sommers

Honors Theses

This thesis aims to build on existing research of market psychology and the effect of sentiment on financial markets. The main objective of this study is to determine the ability of investors to make rational decisions during the most recent period of high sentiment. The anomalies that have occurred in the stock market can be better understood by market psychology which focuses on the biases and social factors that influence investors. The media is a newly relevant factor impacting the volume of sentiment present in the market. A review of literature reveals that many studies of sentiment and financial market’s …


Save, Gamble, Or Both? The Relationship Between Premium Bond Sales And Lottery Sales In The United Kingdom, Kaden Grace May 2022

Save, Gamble, Or Both? The Relationship Between Premium Bond Sales And Lottery Sales In The United Kingdom, Kaden Grace

Honors Theses

Four out of every ten Americans are unable to pay for an unexpected $400 bill out of their savings accounts. To ameliorate this problem, one policy to incentivize saving is a Prize-Linked Savings Account (PLSA). Unlike a traditional savings account that pays out a consistent rate of return, a PLSA pools the interest on all deposits and distributes the returns in randomly drawn prizes (similar to a lottery). However, PLSAs remain illegal in many areas due to a concern that the introduction of a private or public PLSA could cannibalize revenue from an existing state-sponsored lottery, thus restricting the state’s …


Recessionary Effects On Transfer Fees In European Professional Football, Pierce Snyder Apr 2022

Recessionary Effects On Transfer Fees In European Professional Football, Pierce Snyder

Honors Theses

Association football, most commonly referred to internationally as football, is the world’s most popular sport with billions of fans. Professional football leagues operate in countries all over the globe. While other continents have prominent and successful teams, Europe is the sport’s summit for the club level of competition. Europe boasts the best five leagues in the world, commonly referred to as “the big five”: the Bundesliga (Germany), La Liga (Spain), Ligue 1 (France), Premier League (England), and Serie A (Italy). In the 2016-2017 season, these five leagues accounted for 12.6 billion pounds—57.5 percent—of European football’s revenues of about 21.9 billion …


Us Financial Expansions And Exchange Rate Determination, Matthew Brill Jan 2022

Us Financial Expansions And Exchange Rate Determination, Matthew Brill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how US financial activity influences the exchange rates of foreign nations. Starting off by building on Currency Hierarchy and Minskyan dynamics, I look at how financial cycles generated in the US, the key economy, transmit liquidity towards economies on the periphery. Additionally, I use the increase in shadow banking asset accumulation relative to commercial banking asset accumulation as indicative of financial expansions in the US, and the driving force of financial cycles. Using vector autoregression (VAR) analysis I test the relationships between the ratio of US shadow banking assets relative to commercial …


Environmental Social Governance: Uncovering Strengths, Weaknesses, And Misconceptions In Esg Disclosure And Rating, Kirsten Helena Ostbirk Jan 2022

Environmental Social Governance: Uncovering Strengths, Weaknesses, And Misconceptions In Esg Disclosure And Rating, Kirsten Helena Ostbirk

Senior Projects Spring 2022

ESG is a metric designed to assess the extent to which a company has mitigated its risks with regard to environmental, social, and governance factors. In the past two decades, ESG investing and adoption has risen significantly, and ESG evaluation and practices are increasingly being introduced to governments and the private sector. However, today, ESG disclosure is not mandated in the United States, leading to asymmetries in disclosure quality and divergence in ESG scores issued by ratings providers. These massive discrepancies have consequences for companies (e.g. cost of capital), investors (e.g. investment hesitance, lost potential returns), and the ESG metric …


How Has Covid-19 Affected Financial Gains Of Big-Tech Companies?, Erin Flanigen May 2021

How Has Covid-19 Affected Financial Gains Of Big-Tech Companies?, Erin Flanigen

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial returns received by Big-Tech companies in order to predict future financial returns and related business activities. The main objectives of this paper are to delineate business models and financial statements of Big-Tech companies prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, present ample, relevant economic information regarding COVID-19, and encompass the effects of COVID-19 on global economies. This study then predicts the future economic effects of COVID-19 on Big-Tech companies. The selected Big-Tech companies included in this study are Facebook, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon; each company saw …


The Impact Of The Capital Market, The Insurance Sector And The Mortgage Finance Sector On Economic Growth In Egypt, 2005-2019, Hana Anis Jan 2021

The Impact Of The Capital Market, The Insurance Sector And The Mortgage Finance Sector On Economic Growth In Egypt, 2005-2019, Hana Anis

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to explore the relationship between financial markets and economic growth in Egypt for the 15 years period, starting from 2005 to 2019. The study concentrates on the non-banking financial sector which includes the stock market, the debt market, the mortgage and the insurance sectors. The Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model is utilized to describe the relationship between GDP growth rate, as a proxy for economic growth, and a number of variables from the financial sector. Results of the analysis show that there is a significant relationship and statistical causality between the growth rate and the debt market, represented …


The Effect Of Female Managers On Mutual Fund Performance During Down Markets, Madison Gates, Madison I. Gates Jan 2021

The Effect Of Female Managers On Mutual Fund Performance During Down Markets, Madison Gates, Madison I. Gates

Scripps Senior Theses

Women in the finance industry have long been underrepresented. The mutual fund industry is no exception, with female managers in the United States falling stagnant at only 11% from 2000 to 2019. Given this low and stagnant number, this study seeks to understand if female managers impact mutual fund performance, specifically comparing down and up market periods. The data for this research was compiled from individual US mutual fund prospectus and fact sheet information in order to create a unique dataset containing the returns for every year between 2000 and 2019 as well as gender make-up, average experience, and team …


Zoom In, Class Out: An Event Study On Publicly Traded Ed Tech Firm Valuations During Covid-19, Matiss Ozols Jan 2021

Zoom In, Class Out: An Event Study On Publicly Traded Ed Tech Firm Valuations During Covid-19, Matiss Ozols

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines how publicly traded Ed Tech firms reacted to negative announcements regarding COVID-19. Using an event study method, I document how an international portfolio of Ed Tech firms react across multiple event windows. The results show that Ed Tech firms reacted positively to the announcement of the first US death and negatively to the World Health Organization’s declaration that COVID-19 was a pandemic. Additionally, differences in geographical location did not impact cumulative abnormal returns across event windows. Finally, firm-specific characteristics such as volatility and financial leverage had little or no significance on stock returns.


Stock Returns By Sector And Industries In A Year Into The Covid-19 Pandemic, Simon Alvin A. Casas Jan 2021

Stock Returns By Sector And Industries In A Year Into The Covid-19 Pandemic, Simon Alvin A. Casas

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In the COVID-19 stock market industries reacted and were affected in different ways. This paper will use Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes to look at how sectors and selected industries fared after a whole year in a pandemic. This will be accomplished by comparing 2019 stock returns to 2020 stock returns with a t-test and estimating the effect of COVID-19 positive case and death increases using a pooled OLS regression. All SIC sectors A-J were analyzed as well as 18 selected industries such as food stores, real estate, oil and gas extraction, health services, and communications. Results show a significant …


Why Do Nonprofits Fail? A Quantitative Study Of Form 990 Information In The Years Preceding Closure, Mackenzie Arbogust Aug 2020

Why Do Nonprofits Fail? A Quantitative Study Of Form 990 Information In The Years Preceding Closure, Mackenzie Arbogust

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Nonprofit organizations are an important piece of the community and economy in the United States. Each year, nonprofit organizations close their doors and stop providing services to the community. While there are large amounts of literature around financial health and vulnerability and governance best practices of nonprofit organizations, few of the studies have ever looked specifically at failed organizations. In general, the end stages of the life cycle of nonprofit organizations have not been well studied and are not well understood. This study draws on resource dependency theory and institutional theory to identify financial and governance factors that may serve …


Bubbles & Bought-Ins: Reevaluating Price Movements In The Art Market, Silas Wuerth Jan 2020

Bubbles & Bought-Ins: Reevaluating Price Movements In The Art Market, Silas Wuerth

Honors Projects

Employs two tests for bubbles in the art market. First, a right-hand forward recursive augmented Dickey-Fuller test to identify explosive price movements. Second, a test for the statistical significance of hedonic regression price index coefficients after controlling for equity market performance. Finds strong evidence for a speculative bubble in the pre-Great Recession "Post-War & Contemporary" market. Evidence for this bubble diminishes but does not dissipate after accounting for the effect of failed sales on index returns.


Libor Manipulation And The Transition To Sofr, Seth Taylor-Brill Jan 2020

Libor Manipulation And The Transition To Sofr, Seth Taylor-Brill

CMC Senior Theses

With the London Interbank Offer Rate (LIBOR) likely to disappear at the end of 2021 due to its manipulation during the 2008 financial crisis, the financial industry must decide what to do about legacy contracts tied to LIBOR and must select a new interest rank benchmark regime going forwards. This paper provides insight into those questions by first contributing to the existing literature aimed at measuring the extent of LIBOR manipulation and then by developing a model to explain the LIBOR-SOFR spread. This paper analyzes banks’ LIBOR submissions from 2006 to 2008 to identify bank collusion to strategically increase or …


Garch Modeling Of Value At Risk And Expected Shortfall Using Bayesian Model Averaging, Ismail Kheir Aug 2019

Garch Modeling Of Value At Risk And Expected Shortfall Using Bayesian Model Averaging, Ismail Kheir

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis conducts Value at Risk (VaR) and Expected Shortfall (ES) estimation using GARCH modeling and Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA). BMA considers multiple models weighted by some information criterion. Through BMA, this thesis finds that VaR and ES estimates can be improved through enhanced modeling of the data generation process.


The Martingale Approach To Financial Mathematics, Jordan M. Rowley Jun 2019

The Martingale Approach To Financial Mathematics, Jordan M. Rowley

Master's Theses

In this thesis, we will develop the fundamental properties of financial mathematics, with a focus on establishing meaningful connections between martingale theory, stochastic calculus, and measure-theoretic probability. We first consider a simple binomial model in discrete time, and assume the impossibility of earning a riskless profit, known as arbitrage. Under this no-arbitrage assumption alone, we stumble upon a strange new probability measure Q, according to which every risky asset is expected to grow as though it were a bond. As it turns out, this measure Q also gives the arbitrage-free pricing formula for every asset on our market. In …


The Impact Of Immigration On Financial Markets, Jesse Baker May 2019

The Impact Of Immigration On Financial Markets, Jesse Baker

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This paper studies the impact of immigration policy on financial markets. I estimate the cumulative abnormal returns surrounding two events the effective start date of the Immigration Act of 1990 and the implementation of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) of Nicaragua and Honduras in 1999. Focusing on agriculture, construction, and manufacturing firms, I find that the CARs surrounding the events are indeed positive and significant, suggesting that the market anticipated growth among industries that are likely to hire Central American immigrants.


Exploring Financial Literacy Of Independent Musicians In The Gig Economy, Benjamin Milam May 2019

Exploring Financial Literacy Of Independent Musicians In The Gig Economy, Benjamin Milam

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to gain insight into the elements of the career of independent musicians. Specifically, how they overcome or fail to overcome the challenges of a gig economy through knowledge and ability to properly manage scarce financial resources. The research questions posed are as follows: (a) Does higher financial literacy allow independent musicians to sustain and improve their career in the gig economy? (b) How do independent musicians use financial literacy to sustain their career? (c) How does industry experience affect the ability of independent artists to effectively allocate financial resources? To answer these research questions, …


The Political Economy Of Accumulation In South Africa: Resource Extraction, Financialization, And Capital Flight As Barriers To Investment And Employment Growth, Seeraj Mohamed Mar 2019

The Political Economy Of Accumulation In South Africa: Resource Extraction, Financialization, And Capital Flight As Barriers To Investment And Employment Growth, Seeraj Mohamed

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation uses a heterodox economics approach to explain poor levels of accumulation in South Africa. This approach to investment theory and models recognizes that many institutions are shaped to help people create stability in a world of fundamental uncertainty and irreversibility. Therefore, this dissertation examines the system of accumulation that developed in South Africa and its evolution. This approach to investment recognizes that beliefs and biases of people running institutions influence investment outcomes and shape ‘path dependence’. The corporations that grew to dominate the South African economy were formed during colonialism and apartheid. They grew around a core of …


Accounts Receivable Management Strategies To Ensure Timely Payments In Rural Clinics, Anthony N. Medel Jan 2019

Accounts Receivable Management Strategies To Ensure Timely Payments In Rural Clinics, Anthony N. Medel

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Healthcare business leaders in a rural clinic setting can enhance profitability by implementing strategies to ensure timely payments. The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine strategies applied by healthcare leaders in rural clinics to improve profitability. The population included 10 rural clinic managers and billing staff from 5 rural clinics in the southwestern region of the United States. The conceptual framework for this study was Wernerfelt's resource-based value theory. Implementing Yin's multiple-step data analysis process, data from semistructured interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed to identify strategies used by rural clinic managers and billing staff to enhance …


The Effect Of Corporate Social Responsibility On Firm Value And Performance, Jennifer E. Maxey Jan 2019

The Effect Of Corporate Social Responsibility On Firm Value And Performance, Jennifer E. Maxey

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In this thesis, I test the effects of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm valuation and performance from the financial crisis of 2007 to year 2013. Prior research on CSR suggests that CSR is related to firm performance, but the results have not been consistent. My study focuses on the time period following the crisis since trust between firms and stakeholders may be more important following a negative shock. The components of CSR are broken out into environmental, human rights, diversity, community impact, employee relations, product, and corporate governance. I find evidence that at least some measures of firm performance …


M&A Performance: Market’S Initial Reaction As An Unbiased Indicator Of Post-Acquisition Performance, Nikolaos Papageorgiou Jan 2019

M&A Performance: Market’S Initial Reaction As An Unbiased Indicator Of Post-Acquisition Performance, Nikolaos Papageorgiou

CMC Senior Theses

This paper investigates the reliability of the stock market’s initial reaction to M&A announcements as a predictor of actual post-acquisition performance. The two prevailing methods for evaluating M&A performance are event studies (stock market-based measures) and accounting-based measures. The present study combines these two performance evaluation approaches in a single empirical examination. Both the post-merger buy-and-hold abnormal returns and changes in ROA are used as actual post-acquisition performance variables. The acquirer’s cumulative abnormal return (CAR) around the announcement is used as the market predictor variable. An econometric model is employed to test the predictive power of the announcement-period CAR on …


Are Cds Auctions The Tail Wagging The Dog? An Empirical Study Of Corporate Bond Return Volatility At The Time Of Default, Jennifer Mace Jan 2019

Are Cds Auctions The Tail Wagging The Dog? An Empirical Study Of Corporate Bond Return Volatility At The Time Of Default, Jennifer Mace

CMC Senior Theses

Over the past decade, numerous engineered credit events and cases of market participants manipulating bond prices to influence Credit Default Swap (CDS) auction payouts have occurred. These cases have become increasingly common, and the CFTC has stated they may constitute market manipulation and undermine not only the CDS market but also the credit derivative and default markets. Although there is a plethora of news and media coverage on publicized cases, there is no previous empirical research on evidence of these practices. This paper is motivated by the desire to determine if there is indirect evidence of bond price manipulation around …


The Fall Of The 10-K Report: Measuring The Impact Of Accounting Ratios On Financial Performance, Matthew Daruty Jan 2019

The Fall Of The 10-K Report: Measuring The Impact Of Accounting Ratios On Financial Performance, Matthew Daruty

CMC Senior Theses

The annual 10-K report has historically been the most important aspect in assessing the position of a publicly held company. However, as the flow of information has increased with the dawn of new technologies, less and less attention has been paid to these audited financial statements. In order to assess if investors are still reacting to the information contained in the annual report, this paper examines the relationship between accounting ratios and stock price in banks traded on United States stock exchanges. By examining accounting ratios instead of simply looking at Earnings Per Share, new information was revealed regarding what …


Less Is More: Beating The Market With Recurrent Reinforcement Learning, Louis Kurt Bernhard Steinmeister Jan 2019

Less Is More: Beating The Market With Recurrent Reinforcement Learning, Louis Kurt Bernhard Steinmeister

Masters Theses

"Multiple recurrent reinforcement learners were implemented to make trading decisions based on real and freely available macro-economic data. The learning algorithm and different reinforcement functions (the Differential Sharpe Ratio, Differential Downside Deviation Ratio and Returns) were revised and the performances were compared while transaction costs were taken into account. (This is important for practical implementations even though many publications ignore this consideration.) It was assumed that the traders make long-short decisions in the S&P500 with complementary 3-month treasury bill investments. Leveraged positions in the S&P500 were disallowed. Notably, the Differential Sharpe Ratio and the Differential Downside Deviation Ratio are risk …