Business Commons^™

Case Study In Enterprise Risk Management: Lion Rock Summer Camps, Inc., Arthur Meaney

Honors Theses

Enterprise risk management is a crucial part of the modern business world. Being unprepared to handle risks that a company may face can lead to financial demise. Since the 1960s, the insurance industry has steadily moved away from the focus on insurance buying. Enterprise risk management strives to identify company-wide risks, evaluate their frequency and severity, come up with risk management and loss control methods, implement said methods, and monitor their effectiveness over time. In this case study, I identify risks for Lion Rock Summer Camps, Inc. and suggest various risk management and loss control methods. Lion Rock Summer Camps, …

How Information Technology Investment Influences Firm Financial Vulnerability, Andrew S. Miller

Theses and Dissertations

Information technology (IT) investments have increased over the last half-century without clear justification in academic or practice-based literatures. One area that has not been adequately addressed in the past literature is the role of IT investments in mitigating firm financial vulnerability. This dissertation specifically attempts to understand the marginal effects of IT investments on financial vulnerability as defined by firm risk and R&D depreciation. Two research questions are pursued to help explain the role IT investments play in firm financial vulnerability: 1) What is the relationship between IT investments and R&D depreciation? and 2) What is the relationship between IT …

The Effects Of Inter-Industry Mergers And Acquisitions On The Long-Term Volatility Of Equity Returns, Collin Myers

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this research was to discover whether a significant relationship exists between the theoretically diversifying effects of inter-industry mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”) and changes in the volatilities of acquisitive firms’ publicly-traded equity security returns (measured as the standard deviation of percentage changes in price) from pre-transaction announcement to post-transaction completion. My hypothesis is that a negative relationship should exist between changes in a firm’s equity return volatility over time and whether the firm completes a diversifying acquisition, which I define as one in which the target firm primarily operates in a different industry than the acquirer. 980 diversifying …

Market Effects Of Local Media Employment Reductions On The Idiosyncratic Risk Of Nearby Firms; Returns, Valuation, And Debt; And Firm Meet-Beat Behavior And Ceo Turnover And Compensation, C. Kyle Jones

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research examines the effects of reductions in local and regional media employment on firms' information environment. A reduction in the number of local media employees available to provide coverage of firms is associated with persistent levels of increased idiosyncratic risk. The source of that firm-level risk appears to be increased estimation risk among investors, rather than decreased awareness about the investment opportunities or real effects on firms' product market competition. I also demonstrate that overall levels of local media coverage are associated with differences in returns similar to those associated with coverage in national outlets. While a reduction in …

Communication Of Fiduciary Risk For Workplace Retirement Plans, George Blount

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

More than 100 new 401(k) plan complaints were filed between 2016-2017, the highest two-year total since 2008-2009. Plan sponsors of retirement plans face personal financial liability for the risks associated with litigation focusing on their fiduciary responsibility. Grounded in the behavioral governance framework, the purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the communication of risk for workplace retirement plans. The participants comprised 10 business leaders who are fiduciaries responsible for their company’s retirement plan with a national geographic footprint. Data were collected from semistructured interviews. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. Themes of benchmarking, the efficacy …

Strategies To Reduce Risks Associated With Corporate Social Responsibility Lending, Victor Johnson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Bank managers have transacted six trillion dollars of new loans in low and moderate income (LMI) communities because of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) mandate. CRA originated mortgages accounted for over 42% of the defaulted loans because of limited risk strategies. Based on the Aguilera conceptual framework, the purpose of this exploratory single case study was to explore the strategies CSR bank managers used to reduce the risks associated with lending in LMI communities. Data were collected and analyzed from semistructured interviews of five bank managers working in one financial organization located within the U.S. Northeast. Data also included the …

The Nature Of Latin American Markets In The Presence Of Credit Events, Patricio Aguilar

CMC Senior Theses

In the past two decades the Latin American region has experienced a number of credit crises stemming from large sovereign debt levels and sharp currency devaluations. This study aims to discover whether or not the sovereign credit default swaps (CDS) in the Latin American region lead equity markets prior to these sovereign credit events. Through a sample of the seven largest Latin American economies and daily return data from 2001 to 2018, I try to empirically test this question through a Generalized Least Squared model. The paper finds little significant evidence of CDS leading equity markets in price discovery prior …

Financial Institutions And Systemic Risk: The Case Of Bank Of America 2006-2017, Jeffrey Mills

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper explores systemic risk and financial institutions before, during, and after the financial crisis. It focuses on Bank of America the 2^nd largest bank in the United States by assets. The paper includes an introduction to systemic risk and a review of literature on systemic risk. A few traditional measures of systemic risk will be defined, such as nonperforming loans, return on assets, return on equity, earnings per share, net interest margin, and capital adequacy ratio. Finally, the paper will take a look at how these traditional measures specifically relate to Bank of America from 2006 to 2017. …

The Market At Work, Patrick Flynn

Honors Projects

I believe my project will be the best project for me using both of my majors. It is a great way for me to take some of the knowledge I learned here at BGSU and apply it to a real life scenario I could pursue in future years. Investing at a young age is very important to help raise a lot of money for my retirement, something that I am learning right now in class. People coming out of college usually aren’t very concerned with investing at such a young age. I want to take advantage of this opportunity that …

Ceo Compensation Structure And Capital Ratios At Us Banks, Bradley Heuer

HON499 projects

Certain CEO compensation tactics have promoted excessive risk taking at banks in previous years. In response, regulation regarding compensation structure was released by the US government. In addition, regulation regarding capital risk was published by the US government in the years following the Panic of 2008. CEO compensation consists of both cash-based and incentive based forms of compensation. Risk can be measured using various methods, but for the purposes of this paper risk was measured by observing capital ratios at US banks. I evaluate the interaction between CEO compensation structure and capital ratios at US banks in an attempt to …

Risks Management Application In Helping The Poor Through Microfinancing, Edmond Njombe Lyonga

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Poverty alleviation in Buea, Cameroon, has been a problem of concern for decades. The study is vital because managers who control the funds given to the government of Cameroon to help reduce poverty are politicians and do not equitably distribute the funds to all on the pretext that the default rate is high. The purpose of this study was to find better ways to make additional capital available to the microbusiness owners of Buea to open or improve businesses. This qualitative case study design was consistent with the aim of understanding the importance of risk management within the microfinance industry …

Quantifying A Mining Investability Quotient To Mitigate Junior Mining Investment Risk, Jonathan Mickey Merguerian

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Uncertainty and risk are inherent features of investing in mineral exploration ventures. Investors rely on qualitative and quantitative analysis to evaluate risk of capital. The distinction between risk and uncertainty pertaining to mineral exploration is that risk is an opportunity for loss and uncertainty can be described as the range of probabilities that some condition may occur (Rose, 1987). Stakeholders rely on a combination of investment conferences, risk analysis equations, press releases, financial reports, and investment research to determine if an investment potential. J. M. Cozzolini developed a formula for Risk Adjusted Value (RAV) of an exploration venture. The study …

Event Risk : Three Essays Exploring Nonprofit Organizations' Finances After The September 11 Attacks, Santiago Guerrero

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The three essays of this dissertation explore the experience of nonprofit organizations after the September 11 attacks to gain a better understanding of one specific type of risk nonprofit organizations face— “event risk” — which I broadly define as the risk of a negative impact on the operations of a nonprofit organization as a result of unexpected events. Essay One finds that overall nonprofit sector revenues were not reduced after the September 11 attacks and identifies characteristics of the revenue mix that make nonprofit organizations less susceptible to event risk. Essay Two identifies characteristics of nonprofit organizations’ financial conditions that …

Long-Term U.S. Cross-Border Security Flows With Developed And Emerging Market Countries Surrounding The Global Financial Crisis, Caitlin Tongco

Honors College Theses

This paper analyzes the impact of the global financial crisis on cross-border long-term security flows from and towards the U.S. We are investigating monthly observations from 72 countries over the period from 2003 to 2013. The findings show that the global financial crisis impacted all cross-border capital flows in our analysis; yet, the timing, the significance, and the nature of the impact varies among the different securities, as well as between a sample of developed and emerging market countries. We find evidence for a flight-to-safety with the start of the global financial crisis, with a significant, but short lived interruption …

Essays On Moral Hazard, Bank Size, Influence, And Risk At The Federal Home Loan Banks, James Cash Acrey

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Two chapters of research on the Federal Home Loan Bank advances, bank risk, and influence are presented. Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) advances are a growing source of debt financing for US banks. FHLB advances are not priced according to bank credit risk, creating potential for moral hazard. FHLB advances are positively related to contemporary bank risk, but the relation between prior advances and subsequent risk varies between large vs. small banks depending upon the risk measure used. The relation between FHLB advances and various measures of bank risk varies between pre-crisis (2005-07), crisis (2008-09), and post-crisis (2010-12) periods differently …

Capm And Irrational Market: Theories And Empirical Studies, Jaehan Koh

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

With a new interpretation of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), this dissertation explains that the CAPM has an implied assumption of no mispricing. The CAPM should work if mispricing is removed from all assets in the market, leading to the Rational CAPM. The Rational CAPM measures value changes of the market, and then yields value changes of an asset/portfolio by employing value changes of the market in the model. For the Rational CAPM, this dissertation explains that risk, mispricing, irrationality and (investor) sentiment all indicate the same. Using the value changes from the Rational CAPM and historical dividend yields, …

Ceo Serps: Are They Related To Firm Risk And Who Approves Them?, Colin D. Reid

Doctoral Dissertations

This paper investigates whether CEO supplemental executive retirement plans (SERPs) are associated with firm risk. Sundaram and Yermack (2007) show that CEOs manage their firms more conservatively as their debt incentives increase. Using new executive compensation disclosures mandated by the SEC, I find a negative association between CEO SERPs and firm risk but only for unsheltered SERPs. I find that when a CEO SERP is protected by a lump sum payment or by a trust (i.e. sheltered), the negative association between SERPs and firm risk is greatly diminished and even eliminated in some models. Furthermore, I show that having a …

Cross-Sectional Differences Between Topic 1: Money Market Mutual Funds And Their Role In The Mutual Fund Families. Topic 2: Innovations In Financial Products. Conventional Mutual Funds Versus Exchange Traded Funds., Anna Agapova

Finance Dissertations

The first essay examines cross-sectional differences between money market mutual funds (MMMFs), in the context of the sponsoring fund family. While extant studies have shown that fund family characteristics impact the management of open-end equity mutual funds, results of this study’s analysis find that fund family characteristics also affect the management of MMMF assets, contributing to differences in the maturity of the fund’s holdings, expenses, and realized returns. I find that an MMMF is not simply a transitional account with a short-term low-risk investment objective, but rather, a critical role player within the fund family. Differences in maturity, yield, and …

Costly Arbitrage And The Lead-Lag Structure Between Value And Glamour Stocks, Meng Li

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Motivated by the findings of Lo and Mackinlay (1990) that size premium can be partially attributed to the lead-lag relation between the returns of large stocks and those of small stocks, in this thesis we hypothesize that a possible lead-lag structure between value and glamour returns can partially explain the value premium anomaly.

The thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter I documents a pronounced lead-lag structure between value and glamour stocks: the glamour stocks lead value stocks in terms of both mean returns and residual volatilities, suggesting that value stocks delay in price adjustment to new information. To further explore …

The Effects Of Asset Allocation And Active Management On Total Return Of Managed Funds, Florian Halili

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Portfolio managers are charged with maximizing returns for a given level of risk. There are practical problems that arise in creating an efficient portfolio and maintaining a target level of risk and return. This paper will identify two important factors that a manager needs to address in creating and managing a portfolio. The first step in creating a portfolio should be the establishment of the structure of the portfolio or the portfolio policy, what asset classes it holds and in what proportions. The structure of the portfolio is the main factor that shows how a portfolio is exposed to risk. …

The Information Content Of Standard & Poor's Common Stock Ranking Changes, James Felton

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the information content of Standard & Poor's common stock ranking changes. These rankings are derived from a system which begins with a computer-generated score for per-share growth, stability, and cyclicality of earnings and dividends for the most recent ten years of available data. Standard & Poor's then makes adjustments to the scores based on firm size, sales volume, "relative current standing,'1 and special considerations. The eight rankings are as follows: A+ (Highest), A (High), A- (Above Average), B+ (Average), B (Below Average), B- (Lower), C (Lowest), and D (In Reorganization). Although the rankings are not purported to …