Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

2021-2022 Accounting Practicum: A Sequence Of Financial Accounting Case Studies, Virginia Barksdale

Honors Theses

The following set of financial accounting case studies represents two semesters of work under Dr. Victoria Dickinson at the University of Mississippi’s Patterson School of Accountancy. As is customary for the Honors Accounting Practicum, subjects covered included current events – e.g., the anniversary of 9-11 and the COVID-19 pandemic – as well as the conceptual frameworks of different financial accounting disciplines. Some cases were more research focused while others involved specific deliverables relevant to the topic of the week. All case studies required the integration of knowledge from past coursework with the knowledge gained through the cases themselves. The work …

Clearfield Inc: A Financial Analysis Report, Logan Zajac

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

Clearfield Inc is a manufacturer and distributor of telecommunication equipment, mainly Fiber. The firm is headquartered in Brooklyn Park, MN with an office and manufacturing plant. Additionally, Clearfield has operations in both Mexico and Finland. The firm provides work for approximately 407 full-time employees and is owned by 277 shareholders.

A thorough analysis of the Company using a benchmark, Cambium Networks Corp, showed that Clearfield Inc is a high-growth firm, with the most recent sales growth of around 90%, with expectations of more growth and expansion. Qualitative characteristics and historical financial statements point to great overall past and future performance.

High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas And Small/Community Banks In Rural Areas., Samuel Spencer

Honors College Theses

Drug trafficking is on the rise in America. Drug trafficking brings money laundering, and banks have to combat this with Anti-Money laundering (AML) policies from the Bank Secrecy act. This is combated by the High-Intensity-Drug-Trafficking Area (HIDTA) designation. The designation aims at providing support to local, state, and federal law enforcement to combat drug trafficking in these counties. HIDTA and banks are not connected. Rather I use the HIDTA designation as a proxy to clearly identify counties that have drug trafficking. I specifically focused on small and community banks in rural areas. Small and community banks are disproportionately affected by …

Combatting Consolidation In The United States Banking Industry: An Analysis Of Performance And Strategy Of First National Bank Of Clarksdale, Lydia Johnsey

Honors Theses

This thesis is based on a submission with group members in the 2023 Case Study Competition for the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. This thesis includes additional background information not included in the original competition paper in order to clarify the competition standards and goal of the paper. This thesis evaluates First National Bank of Clarksdale with respect to two areas: financial analysis, which evaluates earnings performance, loan portfolio composition, asset growth, capital levels, and liquidity of the bank; and strategy, which includes staffing, succession, training, and technology strategies instituted by bank management. Data from the bank’s Uniform Bank Performance …

Three Essays On New Issues In Corporate Finance, Abdullah Shoeb

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on three new issues in corporate finance, each aiming at different aspects of a firm's behavior. First, I propose a novel way to classify domestic manufacturing firms based on their level of financial constraint. Using the operating cash flow ratio as my new measure, I find that the behavior of constrained and unconstrained firms differ significantly, unlike existing constraint measures from the literature. My results indicate that constrained firms cannot engage in equity recycling, have a higher sensitivity to cash flow, use the proceeds from the sales of their fixed assets in R&D, and cannot change leverage …

The Interaction Between Spending Policies And Asset Allocation For College And University Endowment, Ryan Erickson

Honors Projects in Finance

The analysis revealed better combinations of asset allocation and spending policy for college and university endowments that efficiently balance the desirable outcomes of stable spending in real terms against maintaining the purchasing power of the endowment over time (intergenerational equity). Using the variability and correlation of historical asset class returns, we created a forward-looking, projection-based, multivariate Monte Carlo simulation of individual asset class returns. The simulation incorporates the relationships between inflation and asset class returns, and the relationships among asset class returns. The projected time series of asset class returns produced a time series of endowment portfolio returns given an …

Stock Splits And Corporate Peer Effects, Albert J. Saad

Theses and Dissertations

We find that a company’s decision to execute a stock split is affected by the number of stock splits carried out by its peers. Through the use of a broad peer group construction methodology, we also reveal the presence of asymmetric effects with regard to companies of different market capitalization size. In the periods of 1983–1996 and 1997–2009 we find that firms are more likely to split their stock if more of their peers have recently done so. However, in the period of 2010–2019 we see that the opposite is true. These results provide further evidence on social learning from …

2023 Private Capital Markets Report, Craig R. Everett

Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Report

The Pepperdine private cost of capital survey was originally launched in 2007 and is the first comprehensive and simultaneous investigation of the major private capital market segments. This year’s survey specifically examined the behavior of senior lenders, asset‐based lenders, mezzanine funds, private equity groups, venture capital firms, angel investors, privately‐held businesses, investment bankers, business brokers, limited partners, and business appraisers. The Pepperdine survey investigated, for each private capital market segment, the important benchmarks that must be met in order to qualify for capital, how much capital is typically accessible, what the required returns are for extending capital in today’s economic …

Lobbying – A Financial Perspective, Sean Byrne

Theses and Dissertations

U.S. based bank holding companies (BHCs) exert influence at every step in the legislative process where financial regulatory reforms are enacted into law, such as the Dodd-Frank Act, to promulgation of regulations. In Chapter II, we maintain that BHCs, upon facing salient regulation, lobby regulators to have their opinions heard with the goal of favorable regulatory change and to increase non-traditional revenues. We undertook a novel collection of political and financial data from 2003 to 2018, matching 180 pairs of parsed proposed and final regulations. BHCs that participated in commenting on proposed rules are highly successful at having their views …

The Pressure To 'Do More With Less': Exploring Donor Misconceptions About Nonprofit Financial Health And Performance, Emily Dalton

Undergraduate Theses

As the nonprofit sector has grown in size and importance over the years, so has competition for donations and attention to the financial behaviors of organizations. Donors and information intermediaries have long expected nonprofits to remain financially lean - there is an expectation for organizations to direct all revenues directly to program areas, and any other spending is viewed as a misappropriation of funds. Nonprofit organizations attempt to satisfy this widely held donor expectation at the expense of organizational infrastructure and growth potential. I reviewed the Economic Research Institute’s Form 990 data and NCCS CORE data for 2013/2014 and 2018/2019 …

Survey Of Professional Forecasters 2023, Singapore Management University

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

Forecasters Maintain Their Expectations for Growth in 2023 The forecasters see the U.S. economy in 2023 expanding at the same pace as they predicted three months ago, according to 38 panelists surveyed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The forecasters predict annual-average over annualaverage growth in real GDP of 1.3 percent in 2023, unrevised from their estimate of three months ago. The panelists are also maintaining their forecast for growth in the second quarter at an annual rate of 1.0 percent, unchanged compared with their previous projection. However, while their predictions for the second quarter and for 2023 remain …

Money Laundering In The Global Art Market, Arran Walton

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

It is no secret that money laundering has seeped into the art market for years, but veils of anonymity and lack of regulation have kept many of those who foster the illegal operations immune from justice. As criminal operations permeate the art market on a regular basis, what can be done? This thesis will approach this question through an examination of qualitative data and studies, including investigating applicable recent cases, to understand four unique vulnerabilities of the art market and how these weaknesses are exploited. Additionally, the major groups who use the art market as a means of money laundering …

Money Laundering In The Global Art Market, Arran Walton

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

It is no secret that money laundering has seeped into the art market for years, but veils of anonymity and lack of regulation have kept many of those who foster the illegal operations immune from justice. As criminal operations permeate the art market on a regular basis, what can be done? This thesis will approach this question through an examination of qualitative data and studies, including investigating applicable recent cases, to understand four unique vulnerabilities of the art market and how these weaknesses are exploited. Additionally, the major groups who use the art market as a means of money laundering …

Turmoil On The Mississippi River: Harnessing Green Infrastructure To Accommodate Drastically Changing Environmental Patterns, Edouard Ballett

Supply Chain Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Mississippi River is one of the most important commercial waterways in the world. It connects the United States’ agricultural and manufacturing centers with the rest of the country and the global supply chain while also being the economic engine for developments up and down the river. Over the past four years, the Mississippi River has experienced its worst drought and flood on record. Climate change is increasing the commonality of extreme weather events, and we must alter outdated concrete or “gray” infrastructure. Traditional river engineering of levees, locks, and dams increases the severity of river flow or lack thereof, …

An Analysis Of The Housing Affordability Crisis: Private Equity Or Legislation Issue, Jack Polk

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The aim of this thesis is to explore the claim that private equity investment is the cause of the modern unaffordability in the single family housing market. Through empirical study and historical research we found that the footprint of institutional investors in this space is insignificant. However, legislative errors which have artificially inflated demand and suppressed supply over the past decade have greatly contributed to the crisis and must be corrected for the long term health of the housing space. These corrections will focus primarily in the alleviation of supply pressures for new development and the continuation of the low …

How The Finance Industry Is Shaped By Technology – A Corporate Experience, Max Pabin

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

For this paper, I want to analyze how new technology affects the financial industry for individual clients. My internship at Fidelity Investments provided me with a back-end view of the technology used for clients, while my Chase experience has provided me with an in-depth view of how clients use technology daily. I believe that the financial services industry is being taken over by new technology. This has created a new experience for customers that has made it easier for them to bank, apply for credit, and invest their money. I find this subject to be very interesting as someone who …

Internship Experience At Accenture, Drew Keatts

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper discusses my internship experience at Accenture and all of the things I learned from it. I worked out of Dallas, Texas, and it was a 10-week internship. Some of the things I discuss include financial management, financial analysis, profit margins, and professionalism. I cannot express how amazing this experience was and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work for Accenture. I hope you enjoy my experience and the key takeaways I had from it.

Company Provided Retirement Plans: Key Distinctions And Impacts For Employers And Employees, Ashley Valentine

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

Employee retirement plans vary from company to company as a result of organizational goals to attract and retain employees and drive overall company performance. This thesis will explore the differences between key retirement plans offered in the United States, including 401(k) plans, pension plans, Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP), and profit-sharing. By understanding and evaluating each, a company can determine the ideal structure of retirement plans for the benefits of both their employees and the company’s growth. This review will provide insights on the financial and productivity benefits to employees and employers from offering each of the various retirement options. …

Assessing The Impact Of Impact Investing: Practices, Challenges, And Opportunities Towards The Standardization Of Impact Assessment Mechanisms, Taylor Poe

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research project focuses on gathering information on which impact measurement mechanisms are currently used in the impact investing industry, and how these mechanisms are standardized across various firms, geographic locations, and fund types. The overarching goal of the study is to provide an assessment of the impact investing industry and the use of standardized impact assessment practices. The specific goal of this research study is to collect and present information on the current state of impact measurement standardization. Research is separated into three large components: interviews with industry leaders, findings from social finance conferences, and research of scholarly sources. …

Cost Of Capitol: Analyzing Congressional Insider Trading Regulation, Hannah Levy

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The United States Congress has involved itself with the financial regulation of big business for decades. The legislative body has passed a multitude of laws over time which foster greater transparency and trust between individual investors and big business. Until recently, legislators have avoided passing laws which regulate their own financial activity. Recent investigations revealing that dozens of federal lawmakers have violated financial disclosure laws and made stock trades on insider information has successfully angered the public and forced Congress to consider tighter restrictions. But can Americans trust their legislators to effectively regulate themselves? If no legislative action is taken, …