Business Commons^™

Spend Your Student Loans On A Vacation. No One Is Watching., Raul A. Hernandez, Morten Buttler

Capstones

Student loan debtors who spend their loans on non-educational expenses   increase the likelihood of financial hardship once they begin repayment. Contributing to the financial struggles of student loan debtors is an overly-complicated student loan system which can entangle borrowers with unclear financial statements and a glut of federal loan repayment programs.

Link to capstone project: https://medium.com/@raul.hernandez/spend-your-student-loans-on-a-vacation-no-one-is-watching-a71834ed6f45#.vj61hhxig

An Analysis On The Growth Of Student Loans And Its Implications On The U.S. Economy, Jensine Voon

Honors Theses

Student loan debt is an issue facing the United States of America today. More and more people are enrolling themselves into college, hoping that a college degree would increase their chances of employment and improve their standard of living. However, the rise in demand for tertiary education has an effect on the amount of student loan debt accumulated in America. A hike in college tuition fees has caused a rise in default rate among student borrowers. More borrowers are entering repayment plans because they are not able to make their monthly loan payments. This phenomenon has altered borrowers’ decision on …

The Impact Of Leverage On Hedge Fund Performance, Wansoo Choi

Financial Analyst

In this paper, the effect of leverage on hedge fund performance is measured. TASS data from 1994 to 2016 are used to measure the impact of leverage on hedge fund performance. Three hedge fund performance measurements are regressed on degree of leverage with eight control variables including fund size, strategies, and use of derivatives. The results show that for strategyadjusted return as a performance measurement, hedge fund leverage has a negative impact on fund performance. Also there is evidence of diseconomies of scale where funds with medium-sized assets under management (AUM) tend to show better performance than funds with high …

Gender Effects In Hedge Funds Performance, Karen Yoke Wah Gan

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper shows that after controlling for total risks (as funds do not typically hold a completely large diversified portfolio) across different funds, female-managed funds appear to perform better in certain circumstances. For example, female-managed hedge funds perform better during post-crisis times, for investments using the Relative Value Style and also when investments are in the Asia excluding Japan region. However, there are still many conditions in which male-managed funds seem to perform better. Namely, male-managed funds performed significantly positive in the Relative Value, Security Selection, and Multiprocess Styles, notably during the pre-crisis period and also when investments are in …

Options Pricing Through Computational Methods, Robert Petty

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

The purpose of this paper is to show the practical application of computational methods to price options. Emphasis is especially given to the use of the Longstaff-Schwartz method for pricing American and exotic options. An implementation of these pricing methods in a computer program are demonstrated. The advantages of using object-oriented programming design patterns to make pricing programs more flexible and useful is also discussed.

An Economic Evaluation Of A Biofuel Supply Chain Utilizing Multiple Feedstocks, Huaqi Zhang

Masters Theses

Biomass is considered as one potential feedstock for biofuel production. However, the high cost of biomass-to-biofuel supply chain, attributed to biomass’s low bulk density and resulting harvest, storage, and transportation challenges, has been a major hindrance to the success of biomass-based biofuel industry. In addition, the issue of dry matter losses during storage for a feedstock has affected biomass quantity and quality if the feedstock is stored for several months after a single harvest in a year. One potential way to improve the economics of biomass supply chain is to reduce storage need and enhance the utilization of harvest equipment …

Understanding The Retail Investor: Technical And Fundamental Analysis, Ben Davis

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Capital Structure In The Family Firm: Exploring The Relationship Between Financial Sources And Family Dynamics, Diego G. Velez

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

How a company structures its capital greatly affects its strategic options and its strategic decisions according to contemporary thinking. However, while there is ample literature on how publicly held companies’ capital should be structured, less is known about private companies. Additionally, one or more members of a single family typically own the majority of private companies, and unlike public companies, family dynamics influence these firms’ non-financial and financial goals and strategic decisions. This overlap of family dynamics into the business arena complicates conventional approaches or at least makes conventional approaches more difficult to apply.

This dissertation focuses on privately held, …

The World Of Finance In Russia, Matthew Thomas

Honors Theses

Russia is currently in an economic crisis the likes of which the Russian people are unfortunately familiar with in their turbulent past. Economic sanctions, paired with a global downturn in oil prices, have stalled any progress that had been occurring after the 2008 global economic meltdown. The Central Bank of Russia, which was founded after the fall of the USSR in the early 1990s, was quick to respond to the sanctions and domestic economic issues by laying out an Anti-Crisis plan along with the aid of the rest of the government. They raised interest rates to over 20%, passed legislation …

Long Term Optimal Portfolio Selection Problem In Different Models, Bowen Hu

Mathematics Theses and Dissertations

In this project, we mainly focus on how to set up a complete methodology for finding the best investment portfolio which is meeting investor's risk preferences. In order to consider different aspects of their risk preferences, we use a combination of several risk and performance metrics in the ranking function. After applying this ranking system to select most suitable funds from a large pool, we use different models to optimize the portfolio. Past 5-10 years data set has been extracted from Bloomberg. We find out that the asymmetric multivariate t-distribution can dominate the multivariate normal distribution and the symmetric t-distribution …

Will Analysts Learn From Other Analysts Who Possess Superior Private Information, Hangyuan Shi

Theses & Dissertations

Based on a valuable testing venue in China where listed companies are required to disclose corporate site visit records of financial analyst to the public, this study examines whether analysts will learn from visiting analysts' forecasts that contain superior private information. I find that visiting forecasts tend to attract more analysts to issue forecasts in their aftermath than the prior forecasts issued by the same analysts but without conducting corporate site visit (non-visiting forecasts). The following effect is weaker when the visiting forecasts are more informative. In addition, other analysts’ forecasts following the visiting forecasts tend to move closer to …

Two Essays In Corporate Finance, Youngha Ki

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

For more than a decade, to reduce the agency problem, various ways have been examined on how to align the interest of manager with shareholders. Evidence and empirical findings are conflicting on the agency problem. Recently, deferred compensation as one incentive compensation draws the attention as a means to incentivize CEOs to make them work for the firm. However, it is still not evident if deferred compensation has effect on aligning CEOs with the firm’s goal possibly due to the issue on data. Therefore, the first essay investigates if deferred compensation has the effect on the agency problem and on …

Systemic Risk In Financial Networks, Peng-Chu Chen

Open Access Dissertations

This thesis extends the literature of systemic risk in financial networks in two directions.

First, we develop a majorization-based tool to compare financial networks in terms of systemic losses with a focus on the implications of liability concentration. Specifically, we quantify liability concentration by applying the majorization order to the liability matrix that captures the interconnectedness of banks in a financial network. We develop notions of balancing and unbalancing networks to bring out the qualitatively different implications of liability concentration on the system's loss profile. An empirical analysis of the network formed by the banking sectors of eight representative European …

Does Political Giving Impact Shareholder Wealth? Evidence From State Campaign Finance Reforms, Douglas Brian Blank Ii

Doctoral Dissertations

Does corporate political giving actually affect shareholder wealth? While firms value political participation, some lawmakers oppose corporate involvement in politics. Yet, the existing literature has established a correlation between campaign finance and corporate outcomes without fully documenting a causal relation. I use an innovative database of political giving to exploit changes in state campaign finance laws as an exogenous shock to political giving. Specifically, I use the staggered adoption of externally imposed legal limits to political giving across U.S. states to expose how shareholder wealth responds. I find shareholder wealth declines following legally imposed reductions in political giving. The causal …

Newsvendor Models With Monte Carlo Sampling, Ijeoma W. Ekwegh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Newsvendor Models with Monte Carlo Sampling by Ijeoma Winifred Ekwegh The newsvendor model is used in solving inventory problems in which demand is random. In this thesis, we will focus on a method of using Monte Carlo sampling to estimate the order quantity that will either maximizes revenue or minimizes cost given that demand is uncertain. Given data, the Monte Carlo approach will be used in sampling data over scenarios and also estimating the probability density function. A bootstrapping process yields an empirical distribution for the order quantity that will maximize the expected profit. Finally, this method will be used …

Profit Based Simulation Model For The Rail Transportation Industry, Mark Patrick Doran

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Schedules often conflict in the rail transportation industry. Operations managers assign resources and make scheduling decisions with no visibility of the revenue, cost, and profitability characteristics of the route they are manipulating. Transit speed decisions focus on ensuring trains safely reach their destination on time with little regard given to the actual service needs of the customer. Although all customers want on-time deliveries, few actually pay a premium to garner this level of preferential treatment. Operating in this type of environment results in decisions that severely erode profits.

In this dissertation, a simulation model referred to as the Rail Profit …

Two Essays On Ceo Inside Debt Holding In Relation To Firm Payout Policy And Financial Reporting, Asligul Erkan

Finance Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation is a thorough examination of CEO inside debt holding, and consists of two essays. The first essay focuses on the relationship between CEO inside debt and firm payout policy. Previous studies document that higher CEO inside debt is associated with lower firm payout which is explained by CEO’s motivation to preserve cash either in order not to default on debt obligations or in order to keep cash available for his future pension benefits. This study investigates how do excess cash, overinvestment risk, and firm-specific information asymmetry affect this negative relationship, and examines net payout to shareholders as well …

Two Essays On Shareholder Base, Firm Behavior, And Firm Value, Yi Jian

Finance Theses & Dissertations

Most companies spend significant time and attention to managing their shareholder base out of the belief that significant stock market benefits can be reaped if they can identify and attract the right shareholders. Consistent with the opinion of practitioners, many financial economists suggest that the shareholder base is an important determinant of firm value and corporate policies (Lins and Warnock 2004; Brav, Graham, Harvey, and Michaley 2005; Bodnaruk and Ostberg 2013). Despite the importance of the shareholder base, research on the topic has been scant. What’s more, previous studies have reported conflicting results regarding the effect of the shareholder base …

Three Essays In Empirical Finance And Corporate Governance, Chongyu Dang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis includes three integrated articles in empirical finance and corporate governance.

The first article studies the effects of sell-side financial analysts’ innate ability on corporate insider trading prior to annual earnings announcements from the perspective of information asymmetry. The empirical results show that analysts with higher innate ability are associated with lower level of net buys when insiders have “good” inside information about earnings, but this relation does not hold for net sells when insiders have “bad” inside information. The effects of analysts’ innate ability mostly reside in opportunistic trading rather than routine trading. The tests of analysts’ initial …

Two Essays On Lottery-Type Stocks, Yun Meng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the first essay titled “Monthly Cyclicality in Retail Investors’ Liquidity and Lottery-type Stocks at the Turn of the Month”, we find that the well-documented underperformance of lottery stocks masks a within-month cyclical pattern. Demand for lottery stocks increases at the turn of the month especially in areas whose demographic profile resembles that of the typical lottery-ticket buyers (i.e., gamblers) driving their prices higher at the turn of the month. This effect is particularly pronounced among firms located in areas whose demographic profile resembles that of the typical lottery-ticket buyer and propelled by the within-month cyclicality of local investors’ personal …

The Causes And Consequences Of Corporate Short-Termism, Mark R. Desjardine

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Corporate short-termism is one of the most significant concerns facing companies and society today. It demands that companies maximize profits in the short term regardless of the long-term consequences. Corporate short-termism can destroy long-run wealth generation, fuel job lay-offs, impede innovation, and neglect society’s social and environmental interests. Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, declares that short-termism, “lies at the heart of many of today’s problems.”

In spite of the potential harm it may cause, corporate short-termism is one of least understood topics in management research. Anecdotal evidence suggests that financial market pressures fuel corporate short-termism, but little research has explored …

Essays On Institutional Investor Trading, Karolina Krystyniak

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine the role of institutional investors in stock market efficiency. Institutions are important and influential market participants. This study aims to analyze whether institutional investor trading is consistent with higher attention and better skill, what is the impact of institutional trading on future asset prices and how does institutional trading relate to the liquidity in the market.

The first chapter of the dissertation analyzes institutional investors’ response to stock level liquidity shocks. I find that institutions, especially the transient ones, buy stocks that experience positive liquidity shocks and sell those that experience negative …

Essays On Investor Attention, Hongqi Liu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine investor attention and its impact on corporate events and asset prices using a Google search-based measure of investor attention.

Chapter 1 This chapter investigates investor attention patterns and its determinants. I document that investor attention displays strong seasonality. It is significantly lower on Fridays and in summer months. I find that investor attention increases significantly following earnings announcements and macro news releases, and the effect is stronger for large firms. When faced with both firm-specific and market-wide information shocks, investors’ attention response to firm-specific information attenuates and their trading behavior is also …

Portfolio Asset Allocation On A Sector Rotation Strategy Triggered By Fed's Discount Rate, Jorge Luis Orozco

Applied Economics Theses

The purpose of this project is to evaluate sector rotation strategies to determine if they out-perform market index strategies. This work will focus on the development of a portfolio strategy that will give portfolio managers and small investors the possibility to obtain higher returns with lower exposure. At the same time, it will give life to the market as it is a dynamic and vivid strategy.

Hunting For Financial Literacy, Georgia Sozou

Theses and Dissertations

This paper summarizes and explores the results of a survey conducted at Hunter College of the City University of New York that surveys 211 students. It examines the relationships between the students’ individual characteristics, previous personal finance education and the levels of financial literacy of the Hunter College population.

Spot Volatility Estimation Of Ito Semimartingales Using Delta Sequences, Weixuan Gao

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies a unifying class of nonparametric spot volatility estimators proposed by Mancini et. al.(2013). This method is based on delta sequences and is conceived to include many of the existing estimators in the field as special cases. The thesis first surveys the asymptotic theory of the proposed estimators under an infill asymptotic scheme and fixed time horizon, when the state variable follows a Brownian semimartingale. Then, some extensions to include jumps and financial microstructure noise in the observed price process are also presented. The main goal of the thesis is to assess the suitability of the proposed methods …

Two Essays In Corporate Finance: The Effects Of Ownership And Governance On A Firm's Innovation And Capital Structure Decisions, Zhengyi Zhang

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In the first chapter, we assess the effect of changes of government ownership on corporate innovation activities. Across 58 non-US countries, treatment firms’ innovation, both in quantity and quality, decrease after a governmental acquisition by using a difference-in-difference regressions and propensity score matching. We show that there is conflict of interest between major shareholders and minor shareholders. The corporate innovation efficiency also decline after the government acquisition. We find that this negative relationship is more severe for the group with higher government ownership of banks, better creditor rights and worse stock market development.

For second chapter, if the optimal capital …

What Predicts Loan Repayment At Auto Capital?, Kathleen Fogg

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

There are many underbanked Americans who struggle to obtain financing due to poor credit or no credit. Credit score is the primary measure used in the United States to determine credit worthiness, however there are many problems with credit score. Credit score may not be an accurate representation of risk and it can be manipulated. In addition, many Americans do not have a credit score. Some companies are beginning to use alternative measures to underwrite, but there are no published studies on using this method for subprime auto loans. This paper examines the potential alternative measures that Auto Capital, a …

The Benefits Of Global Diversification, David J. Tassone

Honors Thesis

International diversification reduces total risk to a portfolio by adding uncorrelated assets and brings higher long-term returns. In this study, the research looks to see if any single country index or continent index consistently outperforms a diversified value-weighted global market index. In order to value-weight the global index, the study uses the International Monetary Fund’s voting shares of each country and equates each voting share to each country or continent’s stake within the value-weighted global market index. To correct for currency exchange, the study uses iShares and other ETFs denoted in the United States Dollar. The value-weighted global market index …

Predictors Of Private School Sustainability Using Irs Form 990, Paul G. Leaman

Dissertations, 2014-2019

Private school leaders face financial sustainability challenges as competition for students and money increases. This study aims to identify financial metrics which school leaders can use for monitoring and guiding their school’s financial health. IRS Form 990 provided the financial data for calculating predictors of interest. The study evaluated data from 2009–2013 for five groupings of schools, as measured by operational size. The study included 1029 private schools after removing outliers and cases with missing data. Private school leaders helped define the dependent variable as the ratio of total revenue/total expense. Sustainable schools carried an averaged five-year ratio of greater …