Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Signals Of Value: A Comparative Analysis Of Sde And Ebitda In Predicting Microbusiness Sale Price, Joseph E. Turley

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

This dissertation compares the predictive accuracy and stability of Seller’s Discretionary Earnings (SDE) and Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) in explaining realized sale prices of microbusinesses. Microbusinesses, defined as firms with fewer than ten employees and annual revenue below $2.5 million, face persistent valuation challenges due to information asymmetry, owner dependence, and informal financial reporting. The study analyzes 5,499 completed U.S. transactions from the DealStats database (2014–2024) after applying microbusiness criteria and outlier trimming. Predictive accuracy is measured by absolute percentage error between actual sale prices and prices implied by each metric. Findings show that SDE-based predictions …

Corporate Disclosure Meets Natural Language Processing: Topic Modeling, Disclosure Strategy, And Audit Implications, Wanxin Yu

2026

Corporate disclosures serve as a critical channel for firms to communicate their financial performance, strategic initiatives, and firm-specific risks. In recent years, rapid advances in natural language processing (NLP) have provided powerful new tools for extracting insights from the growing volume and complexity of corporate disclosures. This dissertation consists of three studies that explore how advanced textual analysis can reveal deeper insights into corporate disclosures, managerial behavior, and auditor practices.

The first paper (co-authored) develops a topic-based approach to measuring the substantive content of risk factor disclosures. Using an embedding-based topic modeling framework, we identify 30 interpretable risk topics and …

Board Characteristics And Bank Performance: An Empirical Analysis Of The Size Effect In Emerging Economies, A. Bouteska, M. Kabir Hassan, Luca Pezzo, Jose Perez-Amuedo

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

Purpose

This paper aims to estimate the impacts of the board characteristics on bank performance in emerging countries, mainly focusing on the role of moderating factor.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the literature review and the feasible generalized least squares econometric method approach, 137 deposit banks from seven emerging countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Malaysia and Turkey, are all examined in the 2010–2022 year period.

Findings

Bank size is suggested as the statistically significant factor that moderates the association among the board characteristics, i.e. board size, duality, government ownership and bank performance. Based on the bank size, …

When Money Moves In: The Consequences Of Housing Wealth, Darren Aiello, Jason Kotter, Gregor Schubert

Faculty Publications

We construct a novel dataset of millions of household moves over 25 years to examine how housing wealth affects purchase decisions. We find that a $1 exogenous increase in housing equity leads movers to pay a $0.06 premium on their next home, controlling for property characteristics and time-varying local prices. This behavior is driven by search frictions— wealthier households pay a premium rather than incur additional search costs. In aggregate, these decisions spill over to the broader housing market and cause upward regional price pressure. A 10% increase in equity gain among incoming movers increases local house price growth by …

Gambling Away Stability: Sports Betting’S Impact On Vulnerable H, Scott R. Baker, Justin Balthrop, Mark J. Johnson, Jason Kotter, Kevin Pisciotta

Faculty Publications

We estimate the causal effect of online sports betting on households’ investment, spending, and debt management decisions using household transaction data and a staggered difference-in-differences framework. Following legalization, sports betting spreads quickly, with both the number of participants and frequency of bets increasing over time. This increase does not displace other gambling or consumption but significantly reduces savings, as risky bets crowd out positive expected value investments. These effects concentrate among frequent bettors and low-savings households. Our findings highlight the potential adverse effects of online sports betting on vulnerable households.

When Money Moves In: The Consequences Of Housing Wealth, Darren Aiello, Jason Kotter, Gregor Schubert

Faculty Publications

We construct a novel dataset of millions of household moves over 25 years to examine how housing wealth affects purchase decisions. We find that a $1 exogenous increase in housing equity leads movers to pay a $0.06 premium on their next home, controlling for property characteristics and time-varying local prices. This behavior is driven by search frictions— wealthier households pay a premium rather than incur additional search costs. In aggregate, these decisions spill over to the broader housing market and cause upward regional price pressure. A 10% increase in equity gain among incoming movers increases local house price growth by …

[Abstract For] Bond Pricing Mechanics Beyond Yield-To-Maturity Based Calculations, Maura Alexander, Tom Arnold, Xiu (Summer) Liu

Finance Faculty Publications

Three methods for pricing bonds are presented: using a constant yield to maturity, using the yield curve with discount factors, and using implied forward rates from the yield curve with backward induction.  By moving beyond the first method, more dynamic duration and convexity analyses emerge.  Further, logical connections and extensions are made in regard to pricing bonds with embedded options, the calculation of a swap rate, and the “bond bootstrapping” process for building a yield curve.

Forthcoming in the Journal of Wealth Management

Essays In Consumer Credit Markets, Sarah Najafzadeh Khoei

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

This dissertation studies how technology, market structure, and contract design shape outcomes in consumer credit markets, with a particular focus on auto lending and leasing. In the first chapter, I investigate the performance of automated underwriting systems relative to human underwriters in the auto loan market. While prior studies document the advantages of automated underwriting, I show that its performance deteriorates under conditions of heightened data uncertainty. Exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic as an exogenous shock and using a combination of difference-in-differences and regression discontinuity designs, I find that automated underwriting performs significantly worse than human underwriting during this period, particularly …

Do The Oscars Move Markets? Best Picture Recognition And Public Equity Responses, Avi Dayani

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines when culturally salient events become financially material by testing whether Academy Awards recognition is reflected in public equity markets. The central question is whether Best Picture nomination announcements and wins generate abnormal returns or abnormal trading activity for the publicly traded parent firms linked to nominated films, and whether those responses depend on the firm’s exposure to filmed entertainment. I study Best Picture nominees from 2000 through 2024, map each film to the public parent of its primary distributor, and construct a firm-by-Oscar-year sample of 119 observations. Using an event-study framework, I calculate abnormal returns as firm …

Impact Of Attention And Yield Curve On Term Structure Of Equity, Matthew C. Aved

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines the term structure of equity and specifically focuses on the impact of term spread and market attention. The paper builds on prior work that developed the concept by adding behavioral explanations for differences between the short-term and long-term returns while also attempting to link the term structure of equity and the bond yield curve. The study examines these influences by running t-tests and regressions on dividend strip and S&P 500 return data (1996-2017) and attention data collected by Bloomberg (2010-2017). The results provide some insight into how these variables influence short-term and long-term returns; however, limited instances …

Attention And Technical Analysis: State‑Dependent Predictability Of Cnn‑Based Stock Return Forecasts, Crystal Y. Ma

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis studies how investor attention around Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcements affects cross-sectional return predictability measured by a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained on price charts. I replicate Jiang, Kelly, and Xiu’s (2023) image-based CNN using 20-day OHLCV “price images,” train it on U.S. equities from 1993–2000, freeze the model, and apply it out of sample to 2001–2024 CRSP data. The CNN assigns each stock a weekly probability of outperforming which is then sorted into deciles that form high–minus–low (H–L) long–short portfolios at horizons of 1 to 10 trading days. For matched non-FOMC (control) weeks, the equal-weighted CNN …

Investor Reactions To Clinical Trial Outcomes: Interpreting Impacts Using Ai-Based Measures Of Investor Sentiment, Sofia K. Weinstein

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines how investors react to biotechnology firms’ clinical trial announcements and whether artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance our understanding of those market reactions. Using a representative sample of 95 firm-event observations between 2014 and 2025, the study measures cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) surrounding clinical readouts, regulatory decisions, and partnership disclosures. Event-study regressions test for heterogeneity across trial phase, therapeutic area, and textual sentiment derived from company press releases. Consistent with expectations, later-phase trials, particularly Phase II and III, produce stronger short-term abnormal returns. However, categorical variables such as phase or therapeutic area explain little of the total variation …

Auditor Independence And Its Impact On Debt Financing Outcomes, Harry Zhou

CMC Senior Theses

This study investigates whether perceived auditor independence, proxied through proportions of non-audit service fees and client dependence of the auditor, is associated with the outcome of debt contracts. While prior research examines how these proxies relate to auditor independence itself, and other strands of literature assess how audit quality influences debt contracting, few studies evaluate whether lenders interpret auditor independence signals in ways consistent with auditors. This study aims to contribute to the broader literature by examining the auditor independence proxies and its direct relationship to debt contract structure holistically. Two OLS models were employed to investigate the relationship between …

Audit Fee Spillovers Following Sec Scrutiny: Evidence From Auditor Portfolio Effects, Rakhshaan R. Adamjee

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines whether audit firms reprice clients that are not under Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) review when a greater share of the auditor’s other clients face SEC scrutiny. Results indicate economically meaningful pricing spillovers. In the full sample, a ten-percentage-point increase in auditor-level exposure is associated with approximately 2% higher fees for non-scrutinized clients. The effect is stronger for Big Four networks: the Big Four slope is about 3.6% per ten points, and a Big Four only replication yields roughly 8.9%. Among Big Four, measuring exposure at the signing-office level also produces a positive but smaller association (~0.4% …

From Static Λ To Moving Penalties: Dynamic Regularization In Mean-Variance Portfolio Choice, Ariel Santiago

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis evaluates whether dynamically tuned weight penalties can improve high-dimensional mean-variance portfolio choice. Classical Markowitz portfolios perform poorly when the number of assets is large relative to the data, because small estimation errors in means and covariances can generate extreme, fragile allocations. A common remedy is to regularize the weights using L1 (lasso), L2 (ridge), or elastic-net penalties, but these are typically chosen once and held fixed. Using monthly excess returns on the 48 Fama-French industry portfolios from January 2010 to June 2025, this thesis compares penalized mean-variance and minimum-variance strategies under long-only and long-short constraints, with and without …

Linear And Asymmetric Interactions Of Bank And Stock Market Development In The Face Of Global Economic Uncertainty: A Focus On The Nigerian Economy, Augustine C. Arize, Ebere Ume Kalu, John Malindretos, Srinvias Nippani

Faculty Publications

This study explores the functional interaction between bank development and stock market development in the face of uncertainty variables. The geography of the study is one of the largest economies in Africa—Nigeria—regarding the following variables: credit to the private sector (CPS), broad money (M2) stock market capitalization (MCAP), and industrial production (IP), which are all scaled by the gross domestic product (GDP) and used in natural log form. Additionally, we included the natural logarithm of a measure of monetary policy uncertainty, which represents the uncertainty variable. In terms of methodology, the study uses monthly time series data from 1990:M1-2022M4 (384 …

Artificial Intelligence–Enabled Revenue Cycle Management And Financial Performance In Healthcare Organizations, K’Reesa Webster

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this review was to examine how artificial intelligence–enabled revenue cycle management (AI-enabled RCM) systems have been associated with financial performance outcomes in healthcare organizations. A literature review following a systematic process consistent with PRISMA 2020 guidelines was conducted to identify quantitative studies published between 2015 and 2026. Eligible studies were required to report at least one financial outcome related to claim denial rate, days in accounts receivable, or operating margin. Twenty-seven studies met all inclusion criteria. Findings across these studies indicated that AI-enabled RCM systems have been associated with lower denial rates, shorter accounts receivable timelines, and …

2026 Crummer Truist Portfolio, Alexis Matton, Carlos Meyer, Amelia Kondal, Numair Aziz, Madison Kalhor, Taylor Payne, Hannah Gilbert, Chris Brennan, Ian Dean, Tully Njoroge, Dylan Reilly

Crummer Truist Portfolios

We would like to thank you for your service to the Crummer Truist Portfolio. Without your participation, Crummer students would not benefit from the unique insight you bring to managing an active portfolio. We have been fortunate to listen and learn from some outstanding guest speakers who have been generous with their time and expertise: Dr. J. Clay Singleton, Emeritus Professor, Crummer Graduate School of Business; Amy Martin, Executive Director (Corporate Credit Strategy) at Wells Fargo; Davis Moshier, Investment Banking Associate at Lucid Capital Markets; Jay Kineon, Analyst at PFM Financial Advisors; Marc Miller, Partner, DePrince, Race, and Zollo; Matej …

Does A More Functionally Diverse Top Management Team Make The Financial Statements More Comparable?, Md Mahmudul Hasan, Audrey Wen-Hsin Hsu, Sayan Sarkar, Tsung-Hsuan Joey Yang

Accounting Faculty Publications

We examine whether top management team (TMT) functional diversity affects financial statement comparability. Drawing upon upper echelons theory and the information sharing perspective in diversity research, we argue that TMT functional diversity produces more comparable financial statements due to better information sharing and integration. Using a sample of US firms, we find that financial statement comparability is positively associated with TMT functional diversity. We also find that the positive relationship between TMT functional diversity and comparability is more pronounced in firms with a poor information environment. Our findings remain robust after addressing endogeneity concerns. This study contributes to the existing …

Fiscal Illusion And Property Tax Porportionality, Cathy Lynn Johnson

Dissertations of Practice

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) has become a widely utilized economic development tool, allowing municipalities to capture future increases in property tax revenue within designated redevelopment areas.

The study’s purpose was to examine how TIF districts in Illinois affect the proportional distribution of property tax burdens and the allocation of property tax revenues to public school districts. Guided by Resource Allocation Theory, Public Choice Theory, and Fiscal Illusion, the study investigated how the exclusion of incremental EAV alters tax rate calculations and redistributes tax responsibility among taxpayers both within and outside of TIF boundaries. A quantitative analytical framework was developed and …