Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

A Time Series Geometric Term Structure Model: Indications For U.S. Treasury Yield Curve Interpretation And U.S. Federal Funds Target Rate Forecasting, Danny L. White

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

This quantitative experiment executed an extensive study of the theoretical and exploratory development of a discrete step Federal Funds Target Rate (FFTR) forecast model expressed as the time series geometric average of an applied transform conversion of the U.S. Treasury Yield Curve (USTC). The novel approach, introduced as the Geometric Yield Curve (GYC) model, used USTC data taken directly from the U.S. Treasury Department website as its only input for term structure of interest rate modeling specific to the FFTR. A transform process, presented as term framing, introduced conversion of USTC embedded macroeconomic and macro-finance trend information into a daily …

Revisiting The Effect Of Bank Deregulation On Income Inequality, William B. Hankins, Anna-Leigh Stone, Gary Hoover

Research, Publications & Creative Work

We use recently developed difference-in-differences methodologies and a panel of U.S. states over the period 1960 – 2015 to examine how bank branching deregulation impacted state-level income inequality. Existing research relying on traditional two-way fixed effects (TWFE) estimates and event studies provide mixed results. However, these results potentially suffer from biases due to treatment effect heterogeneity and the failure to account for multiple related treatments. Using bias-corrected difference-in-differences procedures and properly accounting for the timing of treatment, we find evidence that the combined effect of intrastate and interstate banking deregulation increased the income share of the top 10%, 5%, and …

Community Cultural Wealth And Its Impact On Pandemic Relief Funding For Small Businesses, Brett Smith

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This dissertation investigates the impact of social, navigational, familial, aspirational, and resistant capital on the ability of small business owners in Pennsylvania to access relief funding during the COVID-19 pandemic, primarily the period from March 2020 to December 2020. Utilizing Dr. Tara Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth framework, the study explores systemic barriers within relief initiatives and how they affect marginalized communities.

To meet business owners where they were, and to utilize technologies born as a result of the pandemic, this study utilized Asynchronous Video Interviews (AVI) and online surveys, to capture the lived experiences of these small business owners. Not …

Artificial Intelligence In Stock Analysis And Portfolio Building, Sean M. Lynch

Honors Theses and Capstones

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) investment analysts, often referred to as “robo-advisors”, has the potential to change traditional portfolio management. These systems access vast amounts of data and make portfolio management decisions and stock market predictions. In this study, I compared AI-generated portfolios with portfolios that were created manually. Surprisingly, the human-generated portfolios outperformed the AI portfolios. However, the prompt used in the AI application affects these results. The subset of AI portfolios that were created with specific objectives specified in the prompts outperformed those that were created with more generic prompts. Overall, this research sheds light on the …

Did Asu 2020-06 Impact Firm Corporate Financing Decisions?, Eric Sanchez

CMC Senior Theses

This research examines the influence of financial accounting standards for hybrid securities on corporate financing decisions. It uses ASU-2020-06 as a setting to test changes to the influence of moral hazard, adverse selection, and financial distress contracting costs on the likelihood of convertible bond issuances under the prior and latter accounting regimes for securities convertible into an entity's own equity.

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 …

Mechanism Design For Optimizing On-Chain Sell Order In Market Without Market Maker, Nico Pei

CMC Senior Theses

The absence of market makers alters the microstructure of the market. It’s difficult to get exposed to time-weighted prices in markets without market makers. In this paper, we delve into three mechanism designs – discrete gradual dutch auction, continuous gradual dutch auction, and variable rate gradual dutch auction – to study how to execute time-weighted sell orders on blockchain in a market without market makers. To make it simpler for readers to understand, we imagine an example of helping a close friend of Picasso to sell his 100 Picasso paintings in the next 10 years since 1970, with the private …

Owning Green: Evaluating The Effects Of Actively Managed Sustainability Fund Ownership On Esg Scores, Caleb Young

CMC Senior Theses

The growing trend of acknowledging ESG performance as a material concern when conducting due diligence on investment opportunities has exacerbated the number of assets being managed by investors with sustainability-oriented goals. At the same time, as social and climate-related issues have become more intense, investors want to use their agency as shareholders to influence companies to act in ways that align with their values. Frequently, this can be most effectively achieved through proxy voting and corporate engagement, particularly if the fund is an active manager. This thesis explores the interaction between ESG-focused ETFs and mutual funds and their management style …

Revolutionizing Lithium Extraction: Analysis Of Factors Affecting Commercialization Timelines With Insights From The Shale Gas Boom, Bilge Tayyar

CMC Senior Theses

This study draws parallels between Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) and hydraulic fracturing to highlight the transformative potential of DLE technology in the lithium industry. The comparative analysis supports the hypothesis that DLE might expedite commercialization timelines, similar to the effect hydraulic fracturing has had on traditional shale gas extraction. The study includes a regression analysis to determine the factors affecting the commercialization of conventional lithium brine extraction methods, thereby better understanding the potential changes DLE will create. The regression model, based on data from 11 projects, examines the impact of variables such as temperature range, tax rates, royalty rates, regulatory …

Unions’ Impact On Firms’ Financial Decision Making: A Look At Right-To-Work Laws And Their Impact On Firms’ Leverage Decisions, Rachana Muvvala

CMC Senior Theses

I study the impact of unions on firms’ financial decision making by exploring their capital structure, specifically leverage. I test two opposing hypotheses to understand the relationship between unions and firms’ leverage: (1) the bargaining hypothesis which suggests that firms use higher leverage as a bargaining device with unions, and (2) the crowding-out hypothesis which suggests that firms have lower leverage because unions crowd out their debt capacity due to their perceived riskiness. Focusing on the 2007 to 2022 period, I examine right-to-work (RTW) laws, since they are exogenous shocks that decrease union power in five different states. Then, I …

Market Reaction Test On Banks & Brokers Based On Bitcoin Price History. A Look At National Commercial Banks And Security Broker, Exchanges, And Service Stocks Following The Most Volatile Swings In Bitcoin’S Price., Payton Earl

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines if there is an inverse correlation between Bitcoin’s most volatile price swings and national commercial banks and security brokers, exchanges and service companies performance. Company performance in the dataset is measured by Cumulative Abnormal Returns during 2021 within a two-day period where Bitcoin has had the most significant uptick and downtick events. Using a market-adjusted model for my regression, it is concluded that Bitcoin’s largest uptick event did indeed have an inversely negative effect on traditional banks and trading securities companies, as the Cumulative Abnormal Returns were negative for my 107 observations and the event was statistically …

Bio-Bust: Investigating Biotech Stock Factors Contributing To Abnormal Returns In The Wake Of Silicon Valley Bank's Failure, Spencer Kent

CMC Senior Theses

Following the unprecedented collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March 2023, this study explores abnormal stock price reactions within the biotechnology sector. As the chosen financial institution for countless Silicon Valley-type technology and healthcare firms, SVB's failure had a profound impact on small to mid-sized biotech companies. Analyzing a dataset of 180 biotech firms during a two-day event window over SVB’s collapse, I investigate whether exposure to SVB, or other factors, was the primary contributor to negative abnormal stock price reactions, considering variables such as the percentage of cash held at SVB, whether a firm maintained an active SVB …

Ai-Nvesting: An Empirical Analysis With Sector Categorization And Prompt Complexity Considerations Assessing The Predictive Power Of Chatgpt In Stock Market Forecasting, Ian J. Larson

CMC Senior Theses

Abstract

This paper investigates whether ChatGPT has any predictive power when it comes to the stock market. Since its public release in December 2022, OpenAI’s ChatGPT has become a popular tool for millions of users across the world. With new use cases being found every day, I explore whether the system has any utility at predicting where stock prices will go. Using a 10-year study window, I prompt ChatGPT to give U.S. equity picks on a one-year holding period basis, segregating its picks into 3 different category sizes across 8 directed prompts. I examine the 24 equal weight portfolios of …

Ceo Characteristics That Lead To Extreme Outperformance: A Statistical Analysis Of William Thorndike’S “The Outsiders”, William Turner

CMC Senior Theses

What makes a high-performing CEO? What CEOs should you invest in? These are the questions that the Board of Directors, headhunters, academics, and investors all seek the answer to. This paper explores the answer to this question by examining CEO performance at the extremes. Inspired by the work of William N. Thorndike’s “The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success,” this study expands upon his methodology, employing a statistical approach to analyze a broader dataset of CEOs over the past thirty years. Using a logit model of hyper-outperforming versus hyper-underperforming CEOs, it assesses the …

Towards Algorithmic Justice: Human Centered Approaches To Artificial Intelligence Design To Support Fairness And Mitigate Bias In The Financial Services Sector, Jihyun Kim

CMC Senior Theses

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has positively transformed the Financial services sector but also introduced AI biases against protected groups, amplifying existing prejudices against marginalized communities. The financial decisions made by biased algorithms could cause life-changing ramifications in applications such as lending and credit scoring. Human Centered AI (HCAI) is an emerging concept where AI systems seek to augment, not replace human abilities while preserving human control to ensure transparency, equity and privacy. The evolving field of HCAI shares a common ground with and can be enhanced by the Human Centered Design principles in that they both put humans, the user, at …

Activism Aftershocks: Looking Beyond The Short-Term Stock Surges Caused By Activist Hedge Fund Campaign Announcements, Zara Vakath

CMC Senior Theses

It is well known that firms targeted by activist hedge funds experience positive abnormal stock returns during the campaign announcement window. However, the link between these short-term returns and the impact to long-term target firm performance has not been established. In this study, I find essentially no link between the positive announcement window returns and long-term performance improvements, using a variety of different methods. I examine performance changes over time and also relative to a matched sample of firms that have not been targeted by activist hedge funds. Additionally, I assess the correlation between the magnitude of short-term abnormal stock …

The Impact Of Wars On Us Defense Stock Returns, Viksit Verma

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the financial performance and market impact of defense and aerospace companies during periods of war and conflict. The study examines a sample of 9 firms representing the defense sector, and utilizes an event study methodology to assess stock returns during specific geopolitical events, namely the Russia-Ukraine War and the Israel-Hamas conflict. The study generally reveals positive abnormal returns during conflicts, indicating lower volatility and reduced market risk for the sample of defense firms compared to the broader market. All abnormal returns are statistically significant for the Russia-Ukraine War. For the Israel-Hamas conflict, abnormal returns for 4 out …

Heterogeneity Of Capital Structure Adjustment Speed Across Industry Sector: Evidence From Non-Financial Firms In Malaysia., Mei-Shan Chua, Noor Maimun Abdul Wahab, Siti Nurhidayah Mohd Roslen, Soo-Cheng Chuah, Nurhuda Nizar, Hon-Choong Chin

The Indonesian Capital Market Review

This study investigates the speed of adjustment (SOA) to target leverage for different industry sec- tors in Malaysia. Using the two-step system generalized method of moments for 415 non-financial firms from 2010 to 2021, we found that the SOA for the overall sample is 38.6% and 22.0% for total debt and long-term debt, respectively. Our paper reveals the heterogeneity of SOA based on industry sectors. The industrial sector has the slowest adjustment speed (14.1%), whereas the healthcare in- dustry has the quickest adjustment speed (80.4%) to target leverage. Our results are consistent with the dynamic capital structure theory regarding the …

Determinants Of Islamic Banks’ Stability In Malaysia And Indonesia, Siti Zaitun Saddam, Mohamad Nizam Jaafar, Amirul Afif Muhamat, Nurien Syahirah Mohd Nizam, Nurin Aqilah Halim

The Indonesian Capital Market Review

The economic prosperity of any nation relies on its banking sector, which serves as the linchpin of the economy. This paper investigates key bank-specific factors influencing the stability of Islamic banks in Malaysia and Indonesia from 2012 to 2021. Using panel data analysis, the study identifies the fixed effect model as the optimal approach. The subsequent fixed effect regression analysis highlights the significance of the cost-to-income ratio in determining financial stability for both Malaysian and In- donesian Islamic banks. Notably the study reveals that the non-performing loan ratio is the primary stability indicator in Malaysia, while Indonesian counterparts prioritize maintaining …

Impact Of The Relationship Among Financial Development, Ict And English Proficiency On Income Inequality: Evidence From Malaysia, Norhasimah Shaharuddin, Abdul Hafiz Mohd Azam, Mohd Hafiz Abdul Wahab, Norzitah Abdul Karim, Nurul Hilmiyah, Sharul Shahida Shakrein, Adibah Alawiah Osman

The Indonesian Capital Market Review

Income inequality is a persistent phenomenon and fundamental issue of concern, especially in this new digital era, because unequal access to finance has long been recognized as a critical mechanism for generating persistent income inequality. ICT tools and approaches are being used widely today due to their convenience, omnipresence and economy. This study examines the influence of financial development, ICT, and English proficiency on income inequality in Malaysia during the period of 1979-2019. The empirical results based on the ARDL bounds test indicated that financial develop- ment and English proficiency support the hypothesis that both factors can reduce the income …