Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Business Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Finance and Financial Management

Theses/Dissertations

2010

Institution
Keyword
Publication
File Type

Articles 31 - 48 of 48

Full-Text Articles in Business

Discounts And Termination Of Close-End Funds, Chen Chen Jan 2010

Discounts And Termination Of Close-End Funds, Chen Chen

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Based on an extensive sample of U.S. closed end funds undergoing termination, this study offers a comprehensive analysis of closed end fund exiting behaviors. There are four ways for a fund to exit: merger into other closed-end fund, liquidation, conversion to open-end mutual fund and merger into open-end mutual fund. Closed-end funds that exit must choose the most efficient and optimal mechanisms corresponding to funds‟ characteristics and organizational forms. In this study, I find that closed-end funds exit optimally. First, funds with persistently larger discount and smaller size are more likely to exit and consistent with rational expectation, market incorporates …

Go to article

Essays On The Effect Of Financial Institution’S Dual Holdings Of Debt And Equity Securities, Jiun-Lin Chen Jan 2010

Essays On The Effect Of Financial Institution’S Dual Holdings Of Debt And Equity Securities, Jiun-Lin Chen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the effects on the stock markets when institutional investors hold their client firms’ stocks. The first essay examines the trading impact around earnings announcements and the second essay studies the effect on stock liquidity. In the first essay, we find that relationship institutions (that have lent/underwritten and hold shares of clients) support their clients when these client firms have negative earnings shocks. Their support not only mitigates the negative abnormal return around earnings announcements but also reduces the post-earnings-announcement-drift, thus, earnings momentum profits. In the second essay, we find that client firms held by relationship institutions suffer …

Go to article

Two Essays On Bidding In Multi-Unit Common Value Auctions, Minjie Shao Jan 2010

Two Essays On Bidding In Multi-Unit Common Value Auctions, Minjie Shao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays on the topic of bidding in multi-unit common value auction. Essay one examines the role of capacity constraint on the auction results and bidding behavior. We consider a general case where bidders are unconstrained, and a second setting where bidders are capacity constrained. We document downward sloping demand curves for individual bidders. Bidders shade their bids by submitting quantity-price pairs and spreading their bids. The winner's curse is strong in the unconstrained treatment, but we find no evidence of the winner's curse when bidding constraints are imposed. Unconstrained bidders shade bids significantly more and …

Go to article

The Debt And Dividend Decisions For Non-Stock Cooperatives: Pecking Order Vs. Trade-Off, David P. Smiy Jan 2010

The Debt And Dividend Decisions For Non-Stock Cooperatives: Pecking Order Vs. Trade-Off, David P. Smiy

Theses & Honors Papers

This study tests the trade-off and pecking order theories about the debt and dividend capital decisions for non-stock electric cooperatives. Decisions to finance investments with debt or equity are important because they determine the firm's capital structure. With the trade-off theory there is an optimal balance of debt and equity, and the firm uses debt until it is more expensive than issuing equity thus reaching the firm's optimal capital structure. Meanwhile, the pecking order theorem contends the firm should use internal funds first, then debt, and equity as a last resort. Both theories have the same …

Go to article

The Effect Of Age Upon Ceo Compensation: A Cross-Industry Study, Anthony Bouvier Jan 2010

The Effect Of Age Upon Ceo Compensation: A Cross-Industry Study, Anthony Bouvier

CMC Senior Theses

The compensation of CEO’s has been at the forefront of the public’s mind for the past few years. During the recession, one could not go a day without hearing about the atrocious salaries and bonuses that executives were being paid. Although it only recently became an explosive topic, academics have been researching all aspects of compensation for many years. One of the earliest looked at the idea of pay for performance (Jensen and Murphy 1990), and the field has taken off from there. Many studies have been done on the determinants of compensation, and I was interested in how age …

Go to article

Do Investors View Excess Capacity As A Determinant Of Mergers And Acquisitions In The Pharmaceutical And Biotechnology Industry?, Jennifer M. Volk Jan 2010

Do Investors View Excess Capacity As A Determinant Of Mergers And Acquisitions In The Pharmaceutical And Biotechnology Industry?, Jennifer M. Volk

CMC Senior Theses

I examine investors’ reaction to the announcement of mergers and acquisitions in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry from 2002 to 2008. Over this period, investors anticipate the announcements, as demonstrated by the fact that the cumulative abnormal returns are not statistically significant. In addition, I test to determine the effect of excess capacity on investors’ reactions. From 2002 to 2004, investors do not recognize acquisitions as a response to excess capacity, as the excess capacity measures utilized have no effect on the size of the cumulative abnormal return. From 2005 to 2008, however, excess capacity measures have a positive effect …

Go to article

Diversification Premium On Indian Adrs During The Financial Crisis, Rajat Gupta Jan 2010

Diversification Premium On Indian Adrs During The Financial Crisis, Rajat Gupta

CMC Senior Theses

Non-arbitrage asset pricing has been an avenue of unending interest to financial academics and practitioners alike. With increased capital outflow being permitted by developing economies, investors now have easy access to securities issued by foreign firms. The issue investigated in this research is concerned with the persistent presence of arbitrage opportunities between depository receipts and domestic stocks of Indian firms during the recent financial crisis. Instead of being priced in parity with one another during the crisis, ADRs of Indian firms were overpriced by as much as 70% for months on end. This thesis investigates the reasons giving rise to …

Go to article

The Role Of Fair Value Accounting In Bank Failures: 2001-2010, Jacob Edward Eugene Spring Jan 2010

The Role Of Fair Value Accounting In Bank Failures: 2001-2010, Jacob Edward Eugene Spring

CMC Senior Theses

Over the Past two and a half years banks have failed at the fastest pace since the Great Depression. These rapidly mounting bank failures have rekindled a debate surrounding the use of fair value accounting, with many arguing that fair value has exacerbated the severity of the recent financial crisis through asset devaluation and the forced sale of assets in an effort to meet capital requirements. This paper seeks to test if an entity’s exposure to fair value which includes assets available-for-sale, trading assets, and loans held-for-sale as a percent of total assets increases the probability of bank failure through …

Go to article

Private Equity Transaction Bankruptcy Risk Prediction, Lewis A. Corson Jan 2010

Private Equity Transaction Bankruptcy Risk Prediction, Lewis A. Corson

CMC Senior Theses

This study utilizes a sample of private equity backed acquisitions to test whether certain factors, evaluated and quantified on the date of transaction completion, serve as indicators of future transaction bankruptcy. The results of this paper suggest that the effective federal funds rate is significantly and positively correlated with the bankruptcy of private equity backed transactions. Other measured factors specific to the private equity sponsor, the target firm in the acquisition and the characteristics of the transaction are found to be insignificant. Analysis on the influence of these factors is performed using two types of binary-response models, which predict the …

Go to article

Factors Affecting The Forecasting Ability Of Implied Correlation In Currency Options, Justin S. Eskind Jan 2010

Factors Affecting The Forecasting Ability Of Implied Correlation In Currency Options, Justin S. Eskind

CMC Senior Theses

Little research has been done into implied correlations, and the small literature grows even smaller when referring to currency options. The existing literature has established that implied correlation is a good if not the best forecaster of future realized correlation, and that this ability to forecast is not necessarily universal. This paper will establish that the forecasting ability of implied correlations in currency options varies across currency pairs, thus proving that not all implied correlations are created equal. Using two different proxies for the quality of the forecaster, the paper attempts to explain which characteristics of an option on a …

Go to article

The Impact Of Ceo Compensation On Firm Performance In The Oil Industry, Christophe M. Bindert Jan 2010

The Impact Of Ceo Compensation On Firm Performance In The Oil Industry, Christophe M. Bindert

CMC Senior Theses

Critics often cite poor executive compensation schemes as one of the leading causes of the recent credit crisis. This paper investigates whether compensation structures at the end of the 2006 fiscal year created incentives for Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in the oil industry to take on excessive risk, which subsequently may have lead to weaker firm performance during the crisis. I find no evidence to support the argument that higher pay sensitivity through option and other incentive awards lead to worse firm performance. In fact, results do not provide any evidence that company performance during the crisis was related to …

Go to article

Essays On Corporate Governance, Tih Koon Tan Jan 2010

Essays On Corporate Governance, Tih Koon Tan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is composed by two essays that explore corporate governance issues in S&P firms. The first essay examines changes in corporate governance after a firm gets added to the S&P 500 index? Using firms added from 1994 to 2007, this paper examines how governance mechanisms change for these firms. Specifically, I look at both the overall governance and details on how each mechanism changes. I find that governance improves after being added to the index. Controlling for firm size, leverage, prior firm performance, and growth opportunities, the market reacts positively to governance improvements as a whole. In addition, changes …

Go to article

The Value Of The Sovereign Credit Default Market: Domestic Stock Market Interaction And Contagion Effects During Credit Crisis, Alexander M. Reichert Jan 2010

The Value Of The Sovereign Credit Default Market: Domestic Stock Market Interaction And Contagion Effects During Credit Crisis, Alexander M. Reichert

CMC Senior Theses

Credit Default Swaps have become a large part of financial markets and recently the center of debate between academics and regulators alike. Transferring the techniques to measure information flow between the CDS market and stock markets presented by Acharya and Johnson (2007), this paper looks at the relationship between a countries sovereign CDS spread level and its predominate stock exchange. Under the back drop of the Greek Credit Crisis in Spring of 2010 I measure contagion effects in the Euro Zone comparing the level of Granger causality significance between the stock and CDS market. I find that the greatest information …

Go to article

Airline Bankruptcy: The Determining Factors Leading To An Airline's Decline, Jason Tolkin Jan 2010

Airline Bankruptcy: The Determining Factors Leading To An Airline's Decline, Jason Tolkin

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine what the critical factors are to an airline’s financial turmoil, leading ultimately to a bankruptcy filing. Over the past decade, the airline industries’ performance has been dismal, leading to 20 bankruptcy filings. As competition increases, it is crucial for airlines to know which core business areas are essential to success. This paper identifies 8 specific industry metrics that are used to compare airlines, revealing where certain airlines falter and others shine. Some of these metrics are later applied to a case study examining Trans World Airlines (TWA) and American Airlines (AA), highlighting …

Go to article

Determinants Of Implied Volatility Movements In Individual Equity Options, Christopher G. Angelo Jan 2010

Determinants Of Implied Volatility Movements In Individual Equity Options, Christopher G. Angelo

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations

In this study, I introduce a parsimonious model that explains implied volatility time series for individual stock options. The current state of risk management for individual equity options still seems to lack the presence of pertinent exogenous variables. This study suggests a few easily observable variables that can be used to explain the changes in implied volatilities of stock options. These variables can be used in the risk models in order to more accurately manage option positions for individual stocks. The first chapter provides a motivation for the VIX as the primary explanatory variable for changes in implied volatility. It …

Go to article

Three Essays On Real Estate Equities And Real Estate Investment Trusts, Fahad Almudhaf Jan 2010

Three Essays On Real Estate Equities And Real Estate Investment Trusts, Fahad Almudhaf

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three distinct essays. The first essay provides initial empirical evidence on the usefulness of consumer confidence index and investor optimism index in predicting REIT price movements. I find evidence of uni-directional Granger causality from REIT returns to the change in Michigan consumer sentiment index for the period 1978 - 2008. I find a negative and statistically significant relationship between the level of Michigan consumer sentiment index in one month and the FTSE/NAREIT US REIT returns in the next one, six, and twelve months. On the other hand, I find a positive and statistically significant relationship between …

Go to article

The 2008 Short Sale Ban: Did We Sell Price Discovery Short, Yen-Ling Chang Jan 2010

The 2008 Short Sale Ban: Did We Sell Price Discovery Short, Yen-Ling Chang

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the impact of a short sale ban on the stock market and the options market and the interrelation between the two markets during the US financial crisis of 2008. The first essay focuses on the impact of the short sale ban on financial stocks between September 18, 2008 and October 8, 2008. I examine how daily returns responded to the ban. Non-banned firms with similar sizes and standard deviations of past stock returns as the banned firms served as a control group. An event study shows significant positive cumulative abnormal returns which might indicate that the banned …

Go to article

Two Essays On Analyst Bias And Management Entrenchment, Bahar Ulupinar Jan 2010

Two Essays On Analyst Bias And Management Entrenchment, Bahar Ulupinar

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the interactions of corporate governance on analyst behavior. Analyst bias is well documented in the previous literature. However, the relationship between managerial entrenchment and analyst bias has not been explored. In my first essay, I hypothesize that while analysts strike a balance between personal reputation and revenue generation for their employers, entrenched managers of covered firms are more likely to induce analysts’ collaboration using management access and underwriting businesses. My hypothesis suggests that managerial entrenchment is a potential source of analyst bias. Consistent with my hypothesis, using the G-Index as a proxy for managerial entrenchment, I show …

Go to article

First Prev