Business Commons^™

Essays In Financial Intermediation, John Michael Dooley

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation focuses on two broad questions. First, how does access to income affect the credit decisions of households? Second, how do individuals affect the behavior of financial institutions and financial contract terms?

In Chapter 1 with Emily Gallagher, we provide the first study of how access to plasma donation as a source of discretionary income affects households financially. In the United States, households donate plasma for compensation at a higher rate than they use payday, auto-title, rent-to-own, or pawn loans. Plasma donors are young, poorly educated, and financially vulnerable with limited access to households. We use the dramatic growth …

Essays In Behavioral Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance, And Higher Purpose, Kingsley Wabara

Olin Business School Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Does individual financial risk-taking behavior indeed vary by gender? If yes, how exactly? Moreover, what happens when individuals with differential tendencies (e.g., risk-taking, sense of higher purpose, et cetera) come together in small groups such as the corporate board to decide on financial risk-taking or conduct intense board oversight? What role does group or board structure play in all of these? In effect, how does the within-group power and influence asymmetry affect the manifestation of the individual tendencies in boards’ decisions, corporate behavior, and financial outcomes? The lack of conclusive answers to these questions is at the core of several …

A More Efficient And Effective Objective Measure Of Financial Disclosure Quality: Omissions Of Seven Key Financial Statement Variables, Ying Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation research includes three Chapters. Chapter One proposes a new and simple measure of financial reporting quality. Chapter Two and Chapter Three apply this new measure to examine the association between financial reporting quality and firms' internal governance issues, such as internal control quality and a possible outcome of internal control weakness (ICW), financial restatements.In Chapter One of the thesis, I propose a parsimonious, theory-based and empirically-supported measure of missing variables, REPORT. Chen et al. (2015) proposes a measure of disclosure quality, DQ, based on missing financial statement variables. DQ includes hundreds of items and is complex to program. …

Young Adults And Money: The Covid-19 Pandemic, Michael Mariano

Honors Projects in Finance

This study looks to explore the relationship between the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy and young investors. More specifically, this research looks to answer the question: how have young adults, ages 18-25, responded to the economic distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic with their investing decisions? Through analyzing a sample of young adults, ages 18-25, this study will develop a deeper and broader perspective on the unique impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the investing decisions of young adults. Using a mix of literary studies on similar historical events and a sample study of young …

Frameworks Used To Measure The Societal Influences & Effectiveness Of Impact Investing, Mya E. Baptiste

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

The purpose of this thesis is to learn how capital generates positive returns for society through impact investing. I address the different forms of impact investments along the spectrum and examples of companies that are grouped into each category. Afterward, I highlight the various pre-existing frameworks being used by the industry to properly measure their social returns and then provide insight into my personal experience working with Citigroup, Inc. Impact Fund. This paper includes an empirical study to address my hypothesis that companies who invest in producing social returns receive a positive impact on their financials. It was concluded that …

Influence Of Heuristic Techniques And Biases In Investment Decision-Making: A Conceptual Analysis And Directions For Future Research, Mensah Morris Ayaa, Williams Kwasi Peprah, Maxwell Okpoti Mensah, Adu Bismark Owusu-Sekyere, Bamfo Daniel

Faculty Publications

Purpose: The primary purpose of the study was to examine the roles of heuristic techniques and cognitive biases in Investment decision making and suggest directions for future research. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study adopted the literature review method to solicit an understanding of the heuristics and biases central to behavioural finance and influence investment decision-making. Findings: The paper provides conceptual insights into the influence of heuristic techniques and cognitive biases in investment decision-making. Results from the conceptual analysis show that in recent times, investors in their bid to minimise losses and maximize gains employ a range of heuristics which often lead to …

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, …

Influence Of Stocks Intrinsic Valuation On Investment Decision Making: A Literature Review, Maxwell Okpoti Mensah, Williams Kwasi Peprah, Adu Bismark Qwusu-Selyere, Mensah Morris Ayaa, Bamfo Daniel

Faculty Publications

All over the world, investment decisions are regarded as critical decisions. Investors prior to the investment decision would like to know the possible risk and returns associated with the kind of investment to be undertaken. Investors make an excellent investment decision based on facts and figures. Since an investor cannot just by looking at a stock say whether it is overvalued, undervalued or at a fair value. This study is based on a literature review determining the intrinsic value of a stock using the Discounted Cash Flow model, with a particular emphasis on the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and …

Coinbase Global Inc. Strategic Audit, Decker Bobin

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Coinbase is a cryptocurrency exchange founded in the U.S during 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. Coinbase’s application allows users to buy, sell, and exchange different cryptocurrencies on the open market. Cryptocurrencies are digital assets used as a medium to quickly transfer value, globally, without any middleman. Some cryptocurrencies have different technology than others, but all are based on blockchain, and cryptography. Blockchain technology allows transactions to be built into a chain that is forever accessible, hence the name “public ledger.” Cryptography is what ensures ultimate ownership, through seed phrases, and security through encryption. Coinbase has several large competitors …

Support New Business To Solve Old Problems With Kentucky’S Keystone Waste From Bourbon & Brewing, Samuel C. Kessler

Commonwealth Policy Papers

Provided here is a policy solution from the backside of Kentucky bourbon and brewing to upcycle Kentucky’s “keystone” wastes and grow businesses in the process. Potential effects range from removing the bottleneck on bourbon production and producing GHG-friendly biogas to lowering the price of milk.This full whitepaper brief provides an incentive model for keystone wastes which have a provider and a use. It is equally applicable for policymakers or advocates wishing to place a policy incentive behind waste-to-product upcycling, businesses involved with methane sequestration & renewable biogas energy, and shifting regulatory and penalizing models of pollution into incentive model for …

Accounting Case Studies, Jack Mcinnis

Honors Theses

Accounting Case Studies is a compilation of independent case studies performed during the Honors Accounting 420 class. The case studies consisted of multiple performed individually, and a case competition with an assigned group. The case studies I performed individually consist of an assessment between the two cities I was interested in beginning my career in, a case study about the presidential debate in 2020, an evaluation of the optimal corporate tax, a mentorship interview, and an analysis of the 2008 housing crisis in the United States. My group for the case study included my fellow classmates; Francena Sekul, Caitlyn Henry, …

Case Studies In Accountancy, Michael Keene

Honors Theses

Case Studies in Accountancy is a compilation of case studies completed in fulfillment of ACCY 420. My cases are titled as followed: A Tale of Two Cities, Financial Statements, Presidential Debate, Tax Cuts and Job Act and Taxodus, Professional Interview, Financial Crisis, Case Competition Amazon Overview, Case Competition Amazon Audit Analyst, Case Competition Amazon Tax Advisor, Case Competition Amazon Advisory Consultant and Case Competition Amazon’s Equity Position. These cases covered a variety of topics in the world of accountancy as well as touching on our personal lives. In the first semester of the course, cases were typically individual before moving …

Escaping From The Dilemma Of Corporate Bribery, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

CUHK research finds firms located in regions with more corruption cases protect themselves by speeding the recognition of bad news and delaying the recognition of good news

A Pandemic Of Greed And A Disease Of Poverty In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque Of The Red Death", Benjamin Herrick

Master's Theses

The breakers tripped. Again. The breakers, a mandatory halt to trading on the floor of the stock exchange in response to the S&P falling more than 7% from the previous close. This was instituted after the Crash of 1987 to calm the markets before trading is allowed to resume. They are supposed to mitigate a drastic crash. They have only ever triggered once before, in 1997. Not for the tech bubble. Not even in the crash of 2008. All trading stops for fifteen minutes when the Level One breaker trips. If it drops further in the same day, the Level …

Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology, And Cryptocurrencies, Jeffrey Dodson

Information Systems Undergraduate Honors Theses

The blockchain based cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin was theorized in a whitepaper published October 28, 2008, by Satoshi Nakamoto (pseudonym) (Nakamoto, 2008). The paper, titled, “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System,” laid out a digital currency creation/exchange structure that employs a decentralized ledger that would later run on the author’s open-source application (Nakamoto, 2008). The main innovation of this technology is found within the security benefits provided by the proof-of-work consensus mechanism that requires solving a mathematic trap-door compression function to verify transactions/blocks added to the blockchain. On January 3, 2009, the genesis block, a term for the first block …

Implementing A Micro-Business Internship Program In Dangriga, Belize, Shaadee Shojai

Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

Over the Summer, I was able to work with Peacework in Belize through the University of Arkansas. While I was unable to physically go to Belize due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, I feel that I was still able to learn about the culture, in both the casual and business workplace, as well as help the people of Dangriga. The goal of my project was to help consult with the Tourism Department of Dangriga to help develop their small business into businesses that were more appealing to tourists. Unfortunately, most people who own small businesses in Dangriga can’t support themselves with …

The Determinants Of Banking Regulation In The Mena Region, Hanene Ksiaa Dr, Mohamed Imen Gallali Professor

The Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance

Theoretical foundations in banks' response to capital settlement suggest that the systems proposed by Basel are not sound. It is conceivable that regulators will consider alternative approaches to enhance the safety and soundness of the banking system. The regulation includes several decrees and ratios; the areas of interest encompassing the areas are subject to principal component analysis (PCA).The paper aims to present a regulatory framework based on balance sheet ratios, such as Capital requirements (equity ratio; Tier 1 ratio; Total Equity/Net Loans; Total Equity/Deposits); for liquidity needs (liquidity/deposits; liquidity/total assets; liquidity/deposits and loans, and net loans/total assets); for leverage requirements …

Risk-Return Dynamics Using Leveraged Etf Options, Eliza Wampler

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study uses barbell strategies on the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ 100 to explore if funds invested primarily in fixed income assets with a portion of the investment placed in in-the-money call options can participate in upside potential, while also reducing risk. This study examines call options on the underlying indexes as well as their leveraged, 2x and 3x, counterparts. The barbell strategy studied, 88% in fixed income bonds and 12% in call options, does not have a higher return than the underlying index, and adds additional risk. However, a weighted portfolio with combinations of a risk-free asset and …

Intraday Algorithmic Trading Using Momentum And Long Short-Term Memory Network Strategies, Andrew R. Whitinger Ii

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Intraday stock trading is an infamously difficult and risky strategy. Momentum and reversal strategies and long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks have been shown to be effective for selecting stocks to buy and sell over time periods of multiple days. To explore whether these strategies can be effective for intraday trading, their implementations were simulated using intraday price data for stocks in the S&P 500 index, collected at 1-second intervals between February 11, 2021 and March 9, 2021 inclusive. The study tested 160 variations of momentum and reversal strategies for profitability in long, short, and market-neutral portfolios, totaling 480 portfolios. …

The Relationship Between Twitter Mentions & Stock Volatility During Trading Hours, Connor Day

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A new paradigm in investing has been created where people have easier access than ever to invest in the stock market from the convenience of their phones. Through zero-commission trading apps, like Robinhood, less starting capital is required. This research is used to investigate the relationship between the frequency of social media mentions on Twitter and a particular stock’s volatility. This will be done using the qualitative data analyzing tool AtlasTi to calculate the frequency in which a particular stock ticker is mentioned on Twitter during trading hours. The volatility of the stock will be calculated using data from Yahoo! …

Risk-Based Deposit Insurance, Deposit Rates And Bank Failures: Evidence From Russia, Lucy Chernykh, Vladimir Kotomin

Faculty Publications – Finance, Insurance, and Law

Using the Russian banking system as a laboratory, we study the effect of a switch from fixed-rate deposit insurance to a risk-based system with premia tied to insured deposit rates offered by a bank. After the switch, increases in bank risk lead to reduced reliance on insured deposits, private banks without excessive capital stop raising insured deposit rates to fund loan growth, and the cost of insured deposits becomes a predictor of bank failures (beyond the CAMEL variables). Offering insured deposit rates notably above the market becomes a last resort to banks. The results suggest that risk-based deposit insurance schemes …

Related Party Transactions And Corporate Environmental Responsibility, Wonseok Choi, Chune Young Chung, Monika K. Rabarison, Kainan Wang

Finance Faculty Publications

We examine the effect of related party transactions on corporate environmental responsibility and find that firms with more related party transactions tend to have more controversial environmental reports, less emissions reduction, and less environmental expenditures. This relationship is more significant for firms with a high investment-cash flow sensitivity and those with a low ESG score. Overall, the results corroborate the hypothesis that the marginal costs of corporate environmental responsibility outweigh the benefits for financially constrained firms, thus deterring these firms from engaging in corporate environmental responsibility activities.

Economic Opportunity And Community Development Financial Institutions In Clark County, Ar And Beyond: An Analysis, Magdalena Hopkins

Economics Undergraduate Honors Theses

Arkansas is home to one of the greatest projects in the world of Community Development Financial Institutions: Southern Bancorp. Founded with the help and support of Bill Clinton, it pre-dates The Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act of 1994, which is now used to fund similar Community Development Financial Institutions. According to the Opportunity Finance Network (2022), there are more than 1,200 Community Development Financial Institutions in the United States. These institutions span the country and operate in unique communities. The CDFI Coalition (2017) cites Arkansas as having 19 Community Development Financial Institutions in the state. It is important …

Planning For Debt: An Analysis Of Drivers Of Financial Knowledge On Individual Debt Strategy, Nicholas A. Hughes

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

This study aims to provide insight into the relationships between proven significant drivers of financial knowledge (numeracy, cognitive ability, mathematics anxiety, and financial literacy) and an individual's premeditated strategy to tackle their student loans. From a sample of 160 undergraduate students, we find few significant results that affirm the hypotheses of the study. However, we also determine that several descriptive factors (i.e., general mathematical skill, anticipated level of debt and interest to be repaid, etc.) vary by an extremely wide margin, suggesting that students lack the very skills necessary to calculate and deal with their own loans. Additionally, we find …

Reshoring The Semiconductor Industry Supply Chain: Analysis Of Risks And Capabilities, Makayla Ann Masse

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

The importance of supply chain resilience and semiconductor manufacturing has been discussed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and its later disruptions to multiple industries (The White House, 2021). This paper uses frameworks developed by Pettit, Fiksel, and Croxton (2010), Ponomarov and Holcomb (2009), and Rao and Goldsby (2009) to identify the semiconductor industry’s risks, capabilities, and interdependencies through an analysis of 45 prominent semiconductor companies. The analysis was done on multiple levels. On the industry level, risks, and capabilities as well as their co-occurrences were analyzed. On the supply chain level, relationships were mapped using Boston Consulting Group …

The Importance Of Process Documentation In The Workplace, Alisha Chatlani

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper focuses on the benefits of process documentation in the workplace and how individuals can go about creating documentation that best suits their business needs. The author of this paper explains how they went about researching, developing, and creating process documentation for a team at J.B. Hunt Transport Services and the methodology behind the entire process through an internship.

An Evaluation Of Esg Funds And Their Performance, Mason Hook

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

Over the past decade, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) oriented funds have seen a dramatic increase in inflows and many investors have chosen to replace traditional holdings with sustainable ones. Within 5 years, it is projected that ESG exchange traded funds and mutual funds will exceed $53 trillion. Many fund managers claim that ESG funds will outperform traditional funds in the long run. If this claim is accurate, many asset managers would have a fiduciary duty to invest in ESG products. While there is often a non-financial benefit to investing in ESG funds, this paper challenges the claim that they …

Exploring The Impact Of Stock Market Performance On The Real Estate Market, Jake Taylor

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper goes on to analyze the impact of stock market performance on the real estate market. This is done through the analysis of the recent performance of the stock market, real estate market, and key indicators of both markets. The goal of this paper is to inform the reader of potential trends in the real estate market based on key indicators that play a large role in the stock market’s performance in order to make more knowledgeable investments.

Portfolio Optimization Using The Business Cycle Approach, Maxwell Kane

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of the study is to investigate whether a portfolio manager could enhance his/her portfolio optimization strategy by periodically adjusting the equity sector weights to a diversified stock portfolio. The business cycle approach focuses on providing a framework for adjusting sector weightings to take advantage of recurring trends in economic growth that signal a phase transition soon. Once a shift in stages is detected, investors are advised to adjust their portfolio to overweight a specific sector that is projected to outperform in the next phase of the cycle and to offset exposure in sectors that tend to underperform during …

Altering Overdraft Fee Policies To Promote Consumer Financial Health, Nadia Barbarawi

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this study is to describe the traditional overdraft practices, explain the reaction of the banking industry from the pressure coming from consumers, regulators, and innovative companies to reduce or eliminate overdraft fees to promote consumer financial health.