Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Regression Tree Construction For Reinforcement Learning Problems With A General Action Space, Anthony S. Bush Jr

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Part of the implementation of Reinforcement Learning is constructing a regression of values against states and actions and using that regression model to optimize over actions for a given state. One such common regression technique is that of a decision tree; or in the case of continuous input, a regression tree. In such a case, we fix the states and optimize over actions; however, standard regression trees do not easily optimize over a subset of the input variables\cite{Card1993}. The technique we propose in this thesis is a hybrid of regression trees and kernel regression. First, a regression tree splits over …

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 …

Investor Trading Volume, Stock Market Return And Volatility, Tossapon Wilaiprapakorn

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This research studies the impact of trading volumes from each investor group on the return of the stock market return and volatility of the Thai stock market. It is considered in terms of economic factor and trading behavior of investor that affect to trading volume. It can be addressed as the following four main questions 1) Effect of trading volume due to economic factors to market return. 2) Effect of trading volume due to economic factors to market volatility. 3) Effect of trading volume from investor behavior to market return. 4) Effect of trading volume from investor behavior to market …

Mutual Fund Performance Attribution Using Portfolio Holdings: Case Of Thai Equity Mutual Fund, Noppawan Amornsri

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

Selection skill and timing skill are two fundamental abilities which have been discussed to determine fund performance. This paper extends understanding of these two skills of Thai equity mutual fund. This paper is distinguished from prior study by using different method which is the Brinson model and based on the portfolio holdings. The model is decomposed the excess return into “allocation effect” and “selection effect”. Thailand SET industry group and sector classification which composed of 28 sectors is applied in order to examine both effects in the sector level. For the mutual fund returns, Jensen Alpha and Treynor-Mazuy are subsequently …

Employees Expectation From Leaders' Ethics In Decision Making, Shirley Easter

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The presence of unethical behavior continues to plague the global business community, however, and its impact in the finance industry is widely thought to be having an even more devastating impact than ever before. Scholarly literature provides little understanding of what drives ethical decision making, or the processes involved and a little evidence that ethical standards have been developed as part of leadership decision making training in finance. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore the drivers and processes in the development of training that supports ethical choices that leaders make in their decision-making role within …

Strategies To Implement Efficient Closing Cycles, Mary Christine Scott

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many financial leaders lack strategies to make the timely fiscal reporting needed for business to obtain profitability, competitive advantage, and sustainability. The purpose of this single case study was to explore successful strategies used to complete efficient closing cycles to evaluate performance and support business decisions. The conceptual framework for this study was process improvement and the theory of constraints. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 5 purposively selected leaders; data were supplemented with information from the organization's website and print materials. Financial leaders who had developed successful strategies to complete timely financial statements were selected to participate in …

Fore Your Information: A Financial Analysis Of The Golf Industry, Emily Trolia

Honors Theses

This paper is an analysis of the leisure industry and more specifically, the golf industry. The paper examines the state of today’s economy through GDP, wages, and unemployment. During these discussions, the paper touches on how these factors affect the leisure and golf industries. The paper examines the performance of the golf industry over the past several years and discusses how the golf industry is working to grow the game despite the recent departure of some businesses and brands from the market. Further, alternative golf trends are discussed, as these trends are rapidly gaining popularity and exposing more people to …

There She Evolves: The Financial, Marketing And Journalistic Sustainability Of The Miss America Organization, Blair Wortsmith

Honors Theses

Adrian Phillips, a Pageant President and volunteer in the Miss America Organization for more than seven decades, stated that, “Things evolve. The press likes to refer to ‘changes,’ but most everything that has happened has been a precedent of something evolving. It comes by evolving and it disappears by evolving. And that has been the history of the Miss America Pageant” (Bivans). With the centennial anniversary quickly approaching and drastic changes made recently within the Miss America Organization, my Thesis examines the program’s evolution and evaluates its sustainability through finance, marketing and journalism perspectives. To do this, I drew information …

Information Sources That Influence The Financial Literacy Of Puerto Rican College Students, Enid Alvarez

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Researchers agree that Puerto Ricans lack basic financial knowledge that would allow them to participate in the financial system actively. However, the literature did not provide any data about the knowledge transmission practices that Puerto Ricans use to gather and transmit financial knowledge. As a result, there was a limited understanding of the social learning processes used by Puerto Rican college students to make financial decisions. Using consumer socialization and family financial socialization models as the theoretical framework, the purpose of this quantitative, nonexperimental study was to identify the information sources that Puerto Ricans use to gather financial knowledge. A …

Human Resources Management Professionals' Experience With Online Degree Holders In Recruitment, Dominic Ugochukwu Isaac

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Online degree holders in Nigeria have poor acceptability during recruitment and promotion decisions because of reliability and legality perceptions of online degrees. There is little knowledge about how human resource (HR) managers identify employability skills in online degree holders. Guided by Bills's screening conceptual framework, the purpose of this case study was to explore how Nigerian recruiters identify employability skills in online degree holders. The participants for this study consisted of 2 participants from each of 10 sectors covering the government and nongovernmental organizations; participants had at least 5 years' experience in working with online degree holders. Data were collected …

Organizational Decision-Making Through Employee Diversity, Kehinde Olayinka Taiwo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The global nature of today's business environment, coupled with technological advances, compels managers to work with an increasingly diverse workforce worldwide. The purpose of this multiple-case study was to explore how bank managers used employee diversity effectively in the organizational decision-making process. Participants were 10 frontline management staff (middle and executive managers) with the required employee engagement skills involved in the decision-making process of a Nigerian bank. The conceptual framework for this study was rational choice theory, also called rational action theory or choice theory. Participants responded to 8 open-ended semistructured interview questions. The data collection process included validating and …

Strategies For Ensuring The Timeliness Of Small Business Financial Reporting In Nigeria, Nanzing Nangil Nden

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small business owners in Nigeria submit financial reports to regulators and stakeholders, and they often lack strategies to ensure timeliness in the Nigeria report rendition. Lack of accounting competence and audit lag in the preparation, rendition, and submission of financial statements and reports are some of the contributors to this lack of timeliness. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that owners of small businesses used to ensure timeliness of financial reporting. The population for this study was 5 owners of small businesses in Nigeria. Management by objectives and Hoshin Kanri were the conceptual framework for …

Exploring Financial Management Practices Of Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises In Nigeria, Alero Theodora Obazee

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Most owners of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria are inadequately prepared to perform the financial management tasks required for business sustainability. This case study, guided by institutional theory, was conducted to explore how SME owners can be prepared to implement financial management effectively for business sustainability in Edo state, Nigeria. The research question addressed the understanding of experienced SME owners regarding how they can develop necessary financial management skills for sustaining a business in Edo state. Data were collected using semistructured interview, and field notes from 15 SME owners in Edo state who had prior knowledge of, experience …

Factors Leading Corporations To Continue To Engage In Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives, Radu-Marius Gavrila

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Accountability for corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its societal challenges is undetermined, and it is unclear whether business or society should carry these responsibilities. Despite severe criticism from some, many organizations continue to invest in and promote CSR. The purpose of this multiple-case study was to increase the understanding of the phenomenon from the perspective of a purposeful sample of participants who contribute to CSR execution and who were representatives of the 10 organizations identified as active promoters. The participant corporations (case studies), in Europe and North America, were mainly in the telecommunications industry. Study data came from 11 face-to-face, …

Searching: On The Cultural And Sociopolitical Implication Of Social Media, Siamak Javadi

Finance Faculty Publications

This is a review of the film Searching (2018), a multilayered thriller co-written and directed by Aneesh Chaganty. This film is a cinematic reflection of the profound impact of social media networks on our lives. The movies continuously navigates between the pros and cons of social media platforms. In this review, I focus on cultural and sociopolitical implications of social media platforms in relation to the film.

Empirical Asset Pricing With Equity Tail Risk, Jingrui Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation comprises three separate chapters on both risk-neutral and physical probability spaced equity tail risk for both the market index and in the cross-section of individual stocks.

The first chapter is titled “Does VIX Truly Measure Return Volatility?” This chapter studies the bias of the VIX index as a volatility measure. Particularly, VIX undervalues (overvalues) volatility when market return is expected to be negatively (positively) skewed. Alternatively, we develop a model-free generalized volatility index (GVIX). This chapter further derives the risk-neutral tail risk estimated from the VIX index.

The second chapter is titled “Decomposing the VIX: Implications for the …

Investors Trading And Return Patterns After Earnings Announcements||รูปแบบการซื้อขายของนักลงทุน และพฤติกรรมของผลตอบแทนภายหลังการประกาศผลประกอบการ, Teerawat Vaccharasiritham

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This study examines the difference in trading behaviors around earnings announcement period across three types of investors in Thailand stock market; Individual, institutional and foreign investors, and also the relationship between their trading behaviors and the stock return patterns before and after announcement periods. The results using trading data of stocks in SET100 during 2013-2017 show that there is persistence of stock price after earnings announcements in the same direction of earnings surprise. In term of trading behavior, before earnings announcement, we find that there is no trading pattern for all investor types and the pre-announcement trading flows has no …

Do Repurchasing Firms Shave Capital Expenditures When Signaling?, Bishal Bc, Yatin N. Bhagwat, Marinus De Bruine

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

This paper studies the extent of firm level over- and under-investment in capital projects among firms with excess cash flows. Whereas most prior research looks for either the signaling or free cash flow hypothesis, we find that the motives for share repurchases differ depending on the firm’s concurrent investments in capital projects. Our initial sample contains 3,417 firm-year observations from 1998 through 2014 where we match share repurchasing firm-year observations with non-repurchasing counterparts by 8-digit GICS industry code, by fiscal year, and by size. Using two sample t-tests, we find evidence that consistent with free cash flow explanations over-investment is …

Small Service Business Strategies To Win Open Federal Competitive Contracts, Mark Anthony Mitchell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite policies for U.S. federal agencies to use open competitive procedures that increase small business participation in federal contracting, some small businesses do not win open competitive federal contracts. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies some leaders of small businesses in the service industry have used to win open competitive U.S. federal contracts. The conceptual framework for this study was agency theory. The participants in this study were 6 leaders of small businesses in the state of Washington who successfully implemented strategies to win open competitive U.S. federal contracts. Data were collected through face-to-face, …

An Analysis Of Kentucky School Activity Fund Requirements For Internal Controls And Segregation Of Duties Compared With National Standards And Requirements In Surrounding States, Marla J. Carnes

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Across the United States, K-12 school systems receive and disburse a significant amount of funds at the school level. These funds are classified as school activity funds and may be broken into two distinct categories: 1) student activity funds and 2) district activity funds. Student activity funds are generally derived from fundraising activities of students to support a particular student group or organization such as the Y-Club, senior class, or student council. District activity funds are generated in the normal course of school business and may include funds such as locker fees, parking permit fees, school picture sales, or vending …