Business Commons^™

Maine Ag Trader, New England Environmental Finance Center, University Of Southern Maine

Local Food Systems

A free classified advertising website for listing anything you need to make your Maine food business succeed.

Estate Planning Basics: Wills, Barbara Rowe

All Current Publications

No abstract provided.

Monitoring By The Financial Press And Forced Ceo Turnover, Kathleen A. Farrell, David A. Whidbee

Department of Finance: Faculty Publications

This paper examines Wall Street Journal news stories about 79 firms that forced CEO turnover and a matched sample of firms that did not force CEO turnover. In the two years prior to turnover, firms in the forced-turnover sample were the subjects of 76% more news stories about poor firm performance despite being from the same industry, of similar size, and similar performance as a sample of matched firms. Overall, the evidence suggests that scrutiny of poor firm performance by the financial press increases the likelihood of forced CEO turnover.

Asset Prices And Information Traders’ Abilities: Evidence From Experimental Asset Markets, Lucy F. Ackert, Bryan K. Church, Ping Zhang

Faculty and Research Publications

This study reports the results of fifteen experimental asset markets designed to investigate the effects of forecasts on market prices, traders’ abilities to assess asset value, and the link between the two. Across the fifteen markets, the authors investigate alternative forecast-generating processes. In some markets the process produces an unbiased estimate of asset value and in others a biased estimate. The processes generating the biased forecasts, though, are less variable than the process generating the unbiased forecast. The authors find that, in general, periodend asset price reflects private forecasts, regardless of the forecast-generating process. Subsequently, they investigate whether traders’ abilities …

Estate Planning Basics: A Letter Of Last Instructions, Barbara Rowe

All Current Publications

No abstract provided.

Estate Planning Basics: Revocable Living Trusts, Barbara Rowe

All Current Publications

No abstract provided.

Mergers And Acquisitions - The Directors' View, Mark E. Pickering

Mark E Pickering

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) can be an extremely valuable tool to transform organisations and to accelerate growth strategies. However, poorly conceived and implemented acquisitions can result in significant distraction, substantial financial write-offs and, in extreme cases, put the acquirer’s future in jeopardy. Directors play an important role in the M&A decision process and should delve into key components of proposed acquisitions to improve M&A outcomes.

Estate Planning Basics: Getting Started, Barbara Rowe

All Current Publications

No abstract provided.

Venture Capital And Economic Growth: An Industry Overview And Singapore's Experience, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper provides an overview of the venture capital industry, and its development in Asia and Singapore. Venture capital plays an important role in innovation and economic growth. Indeed, the resurgence of the United States as a technology leader is intimately linked to the success of Silicon Valley. As Singapore enters the next phase of economic development, the creation of internal engines of growth is an urgent task. The Singapore government has done much to provide an environment for entrepreneurship to thrive. Its success at replicating the Silicon Valley culture will be important for Singapore's future economic success.

Venture Capital And Economic Growth: An Industry Overview And Singapore's Experience, Francis Koh, Winston T. H. Koh

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper provides an overview of the venture capital industry, and its development in Asia and Singapore. Venture capital plays an important role in innovation and economic growth. Indeed, the resurgence of the United States as a technology leader is intimately linked to the success of Silicon Valley. As Singapore enters the next phase of economic development, the creation of internal engines of growth is an urgent task. The Singapore government has done much to provide an environment for entrepreneurship to thrive. Its success at replicating the Silicon Valley culture will be important for Singapore’s future economic success.

Has International Financial Integration Increased?, Lawrence G. Goldberg, James R. Lothian, John Okunev

CRIF Working Paper series

This paper compares the behavior of real interest rate differentials across the major countries under the Bretton Woods regime and the regime of floating exchanges that replaced it. The primary object is to investigate both the extent of market integration and its changes over time. For all fifteen possible country pairs real interest differentials are mean reverting, and in two-thirds of these cases indistinguishable from zero statistically. For all country pairs on average and for most such pairs individually, moreover, the estimated differentials are not appreciably different in absolute value than the differentials that we estimate for various money-market rates …

Static Hedging Of Standard Options, Peter Carr, Liuren Wu

CRIF Working Paper series

We consider the hedging of derivative securities when the price movement of the underlying asset can exhibit random jumps. Under a one factor Markovian setting, we derive a spanning relation between a long term option and a continuum of short term options. We then apply this spanning relation to the static hedging of long term options with a finite choice of short term, more liquid options based on a quadrature rule. We use Monte Carlo simulation to determine the hedging error introduced by the quadrature approximation and compare this hedging error to the hedging error from a delta hedging strategy …

Survival Analysis Of Internet Companies: An Application Of The Hazard Model, Khaled Elkhal

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to develop a model that predicts failure and estimates the time of survival of dotcoms using a number of financial and non-financial factors. This model can be used as a warning tool for stockholders, creditors, and consumers to protect themselves from such failures.

I employ the Cox (1972) Proportional Hazards Model in a cross-sectional and time-varying context using financial data over the 1998–2001 period. Results from a cross-sectional analysis reveal that the coefficient estimates for variables CFTL and NSTA are consistently negative and highly significant. This suggests that higher sales and cash flows lower …

Ua9 Investing In The Spirit, Wku Development & Alumni Relations

WKU Archives Records

Development office newsletter regarding donors and donations to Western Kentucky University.

Term Structure Of Interest Rates, Yield Curve Residuals, And The Consistent Pricing Of Interest Rates And Interest Rate Derivatives, Massoud Heidari, Liuren Wu

CRIF Working Paper series

Dynamic term structure models (DTSMs) price interest rate derivatives based on the modelimplied fair values of the yield curve, ignoring any pricing residuals on the yield curve that are either from model approximations or market imperfections. In contrast, option pricing in practice often takes the market observed yield curve as given and focuses exclusively on the specification of the volatility structure of forward rates. Thus, if any errors exist on the observed yield curve, they will be carried over permanently. This paper proposes a new framework that consistently prices both interest rates and interest rate derivatives. In particular, under such …

Financial Disclosure And Speculative Bubbles: An International Test Of Asymmetry, Benjamas Jirasakuldech, Thomas S. Zorn, John Geppert

Department of Finance: Faculty Publications

This paper applies two tests of asymmetry to examine if the quality of a country’s financial disclosure system affects the likelihood of speculative bubbles. We examine the hypothesis that stock prices of firms in countries with a low level of financial disclosure are more likely to experience bubbles. The countries, ranked in order of disclosure levels, are the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Germany, and Switzerland (Saudagaran and Biddle (1992)). The findings based on the third-order Markov chain test suggest the presence of asymmetry in dollar-denominated quarterly real returns of Japan, a country with a …

Challenges To Microfinance Commercialization, Anita Campion

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

This paper was presented to audiences in Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines through a World Bank multimedia distance education program in October 2001. The presentation addressed some of the core obstacles to microfinance commercialization, defined here as the application of market-based principles to providing financial services to the poor. The paper discusses some of the challenges to microfinance commercialization, such as inappropriate donor subsidies, poor regulation and supervision, and limited management capacity of microfinance institutions. Given the initial target audience of primarily World Bank employees, the paper concludes with a discussion on what donor can do to move microfinance …

Front Matter, Journal Of Microfinance

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Evaluation And Microenterprise Programs In The United States, Mark Schreiner

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Microenterprise programs attempt to help poor people start or strengthen small businesses. Funding and political support have grown rapidly. Is microenterprise a good use of scarce development funds? Unfortunately, most evaluations have been case studies in what not to do. Because benefits and costs cannot be measured completely nor with perfect certainty, rigorous evaluations should support their necessarily subjective judgements with logic and explicit assumptions. The usefulness of an evaluation lies not in its (apparent) incontrovert-ibility but rather in its clarity of assumptions and in its openness to meaningful review and critique.

A Symposium On Savings-Led Microfinance And The Rural Poor, Jeffrey Ashe

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Unfinished Business: The Need For More Effective Microfinance Exit Monitering, James G. Copestake

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

High rates of exit remain the "Achilles heel" of many micro-finance organizations. After reviewing definitional issues, the paper explores how exit rates adversely affect both their commercial and social objectives. It then reviews case studies of exit monitoring based on routine, questionnaire based and focus group methods, making detailed suggestions as to how data collection, analysis and reporting can be improved.

Savings And Credit For U.S. Microenterprises : Integrating Individual Development Accounts And Loans For Microenterprise, Caroline E. Glackin, Eliza G. Mahony

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

This paper provides a framework for the integration of two asset-building instruments, Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) and loans for microenterprise. Initially, it provides an overview of the emergence of the asset-based approach to poverty alleviation in the U.S. context and the evolution of IDAs and microenterprise development (MED). Then, it evaluates the potential role of IDAs in reducing risk using conventional lending criteria. The paper summarizes the findings of initial research on integrated programs and highlights four case studies. Finally, the paper provides some preliminary observations regarding potential benefits and challenges of the integrated approach and proposes an agenda for …

Pact's Women's Empowerment Program In Nepal : A Savings- And Literacy- Led Alternative To Financial Building, Jeffrey Ashe, Lisa Parrott Lparrot@Freefromhunger.Org

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Pact's Women's Empowerment Program (WEP) in Nepal operated through 6,500 groups with 130,00 women members. These groups mobilized nearly $2,000,000 of assets in less than three years with 94% on loan to 45,000 group members. By mid 2001, WEP had as many outstanding loans as CARD in the Philippines and Compartamos in Mexico, two very well known "credit-led" microfi-nance institutions, while working through three times as many groups. In addition, 65,000 group members learned to read through Pact's innovative curriculum that focused exclusively on managing a group, starting a business, and women's empowerment. WEP was implemented by 240 partners (most …

Ashrai: A Savings-Led Model For Fighting Poverty And Discrimination, Brett Matthews, Ahsan Ali Ashraibd@Bd.Drik.Net

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Ashrai is getting results with a savings-led model among minority peoples in northwest Bangladesh. These people are mostly landless and illiterate, and earn about $50 a year per person. They are a vital population segment that microfinance institutions in Bangladesh and elsewhere are unable to serve successfully. Ashrai began its field work ten years ago by replicating Grameen Bank, but rapidly learned from its clients that they needed savings at least at much as loans, flexible loan repayment schedules structured around seasonal cash flow, and an easing of the requirement that loans be for productive purposes. Ashrai takes an innovative …

End Matter, Journal Of Microfinance

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Care's Mata Masu Dubara (Women On The Move) Program In Niger: Successful Financial Intermediation In The Rural Sahel, William J. Grant, Henry C. Allen Cd@Approtec.Or.Tz

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

CARE's Mata Masu Dubara (MMD) project is a women's time-bound accumulating savings and credit association (ASCA) program in rural Niger. Over the past decade, CARE has facilitated the creation of over 5,500 active women's groups with over 162,000, providing the purest forms of financial intermediation to their members in some of the poorest parts of Niger. Working from a very simple and appropriately adapted savings based product, sustainability and replication of the associations is easy to achieve. Due to the overwhelming demand for the product, CARE's role has evolved from service provider creating the associations to a facilitator that trains …

The New Microfinance: An Essay On The Self-Help Group Movement In India, Kim Wilson

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Indian NGOs have created at least one million self-help groups with 17,000,000 members since the self-help group concept was developed by MYRADA in the late 1980s. India is unique in that banks are permitted to lend directly to unregistered self-help groups and by May 2001, banks and cooperatives had financed 461,478 of these groups, with almost 200,000 new self-help groups financed between May 2000 and May 2001, indicating an accelerated process of expansion. The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) trains banks and refinances their loans. The key to NABARD's success is decentralization. Responsibility for group development and …

Book Review: Inner-City Entrepreneurship Development: The Microcredit Challenge By Nitin Bhatt, Jerry Black

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

To Pay Or Not To Pay?: Local Institutional Differences And The Viability Of Rural Credit In Nicaragua, Johan Bastiaensen, Ben D'Exelle

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Innovative credit enterprises, aiming to expand the frontier of the rural credit market, can attain financial sustainabihty and broadened social outreach if they embed financial operations in local institutions, such as social networks and prevailing rules. Only in this way can the "rules of the game" imposed by the credit enterprise gain the local legitimacy that is necessary to reduce transaction costs sufficiently. The nature of preexisting local institutional environments, therefore, has a profound effect on the performance of credit enterprises. Our analysis of a rural microcredit program in two neighboring villages in Nicaragua indicates that existing patron-client structures, conditioned …

Community Savings Funds: Providing Access To Basic Financial Services In Marginalized Rural Areas Of Mexico, Gabriala Zapata

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

The Community Savings Funds (CSFs) promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture in Mexico seek to provide marginalized community groups with a simple mechanism that allows them to save and administer their own funds securely, efficiently, and profitably, according to their own needs and priorities. Specially trained promoters help set up CSFs for a period of one year—using a standardized Toolkit—after which they are expected to work autonomously. There are 540 CSFs in 12 states with over 12,800 members and savings totaling 4.45 million pesos (US 5445,000). This paper describes the characteristics of the CSF model and the results to date. …