Business Commons^™

The Discretionary Effect Of Ceos And Board Chairs On Corporate Governance Structures, Matteo P. Arena, Marcus V. Braga-Alves

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

In this study we analyze the effect of latent managerial characteristics on corporate governance. We find that CEO and board chair fixed effects explain a significant portion of the variation in board size, board independence, and CEO-chair duality even after controlling for several firm characteristics and firm fixed effects. The effect of CEOs on corporate governance practices is attributable mainly to executives who simultaneously hold the position of CEO and board chair in the same firm. Our results do not show a decline in CEO discretionary influence on corporate governance after the enactment of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act and stock exchange …

Death Cross For Gold, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

For technical traders, a death cross is definitely a sell sign. A death cross occurs when a shorter term moving average (such as the 50 day) crosses a longer term moving average (such as the 200 day) to the downside. Gold recently experienced such an event. However, fundamental traders are often at odds with this belief. (See article here, Yahoo Finance.)

Which Students Trade The Most? – Five Years Of Evidence From Simulations In An Introductory Investments Course, Steven Welch

Accounting and Finance Faculty Publications

In investment literature, overconfidence among male investors has been shown bytheir relatively high trading frequency in spite of the evidence that more trading reduces returns by way of transactions costs. In this study, given the assumption that modern, college-educated students taking an investments class should be better educated than the average investor, we posit that female and male students should not have a significant difference between them in (over)confidence, and therefore, trading frequency. We also introduce a new concept of whether domestic or international students trade more frequently, and posit some possible explanations for the results.

Corporate Governance, Institutional Ownership, And The Decision To Pay The Amount Of Dividends: Evidence From Usa, John Obradovich, Amarjit Gill

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The decision to pay dividends is influenced by many financial factors. The purpose of this study is to find the relationships between corporate governance, institutional ownership, and the decision to pay dividends in American service firms. A sample of 296 American firms listed on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for a period of 3 years (from 2009-2011) was selected. This study applied a co-relational and non-experimental research design. The findings of this study indicate that the decision to pay dividends is a positive function of board size, CEO duality, and internationalization of the firm, and a negative function of institutional …

The Impact Of Corporate Governance And Financial Leverage On The Value Of American Firms, John Obradovich, Amarjit Gill

Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study examines the impact of corporate governance and financial leverage on the value of American firms. This study also seeks to extend the findings of Gill and Mathur (2011a). A sample of 333 firms listed on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for a period of 3 years from 2009-2011 was selected. The co-relational and non-experimental research design was used to conduct this study. Overall, findings show that larger board size negatively impacts the value of American firms, and CEO duality, audit committee, financial leverage, firm size, return on assets, and insider holdings positively impact the value of American firms. …

If You Don't Want To Be An Engineer...., Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

Recent surveys suggest that engineers (chemical, mechanical, etc.) are the highest earning undergraduate majors -- most in the $60-65K range. Finance is the next highest, at $57,600. So, it seems you have made a good investment by selecting finance as your major. (See article here, Fox Business / Business News Daily.)

Inward Fdi In The United States And Its Policy Context, Lucyna G. Kornecki Ph.D.

Accounting, Economics, Finance, and Information Sciences - Daytona Beach

Inward foreign direct investment (IFDI) represents an integral part of the United States (U.S.)economy, with its stock growing from US$ 83 billion in 1980 to US$ 3.5 trillion in 2011. The United States, which had earlier been primarily a home for multinational enterprises (MNEs) rather than a host for affiliates of foreign MNEs, has become a preferred host country for FDI since the 1980s. Foreign MNEs have contributed robust flows of FDI into diverse industries of the U.S. economy, and total FDI inflows reached US$ 227 billion in 2011, equivalent to 15% of global inflows, the single largest share of …

Commercial Property Rent Dynamics In U.S. Metropolitan Areas: An Examination Of Office, Industrial, Flex And Retail Space, Maria R. Ibanez, Anthony Pennington-Cross

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

This paper is concerned with the market rental rate for space offered by commercial property and how that rental rate evolves over time. Rental rates reflect the value of the services provided by the property and can have a significant impact on the ability of its owners to make monthly debt obligations. We investigate commercial property rent dynamics for 34 large metropolitan areas in the U.S. The dynamics are studied from the second quarter of 1990 through the second quarter of 2009 and the results are compared across four property types or uses (office, industrial, flex, and retail). There is …

Director Ownership, Governance, And Performance, Sanjai Bhagat, Brian Bolton

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

We study the impact of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act on the relationship between corporate governance and company performance. We consider 5 measures of corporate governance during the period 1998–2007. We find a significant negative relationship between board independence and operating performance during the pre-2002 period, but a positive and significant relationship during the post-2002 period. Our most important contribution is a proposal of a governance measure, namely, dollar ownership of the board members, that is simple, intuitive, less prone to measurement error, and not subject to the problem of weighting a multitude of governance provisions in constructing a governance index.

A New Look At The Corporate Social-Financial Performance Relationship: The Moderating Roles Of Temporal And Inter-Domain Consistency In Corporate Social Performance, Heli Wang, Jaepil Choi

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors develop the argument that the establishment of good stakeholder relations is influenced not only by a firm’s having a high level of corporate social performance but also by its ability to deliver consistent social performance. Therefore, both level and consistency in corporate social performance should have significant financial implications. More specifically, the authors suggest that level and two types of consistency in corporate social performance—temporal consistency and interdomain consistency—interact positively to influence a firm’s financial performance. Using a sample of 622 firms and 2,365 firm-year observations based on the Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini, & Co. data, the authors found …

Bond Portfolio Duration, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

Duration is a measure of the effective maturity of a bond or bond portfolio. A higher duration is indicative of higher price risk, particularly in response to changing rates. Thus, if interest rates rise and bond prices fall, a bond with a higher duration will experience a sharper drop in price. Given the relatively low level of interest rates in the current market, bond investors have moved to lower duration portfolios, as protection against expected increases in rates. (See article here, Wall Street Journal.)

Increased Leverage = Less Risk?, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

All else equal, the use of leverage increases investment risk. But, can it ever have the opposite effect? Investors using the so-called risk parity trade believe the answer is yes. Under this approach, a portfolio is built using equity and debt, but the debt is purchased using leverage. The strategy is based on two key points: (1) equity is more volatile than debt and (2) debt returns are negatively correlated to equity returns. Thus, with leverage, the debt returns are in effect more volatile. When combined, the negative correlation creates a less risky portfolio as the equity and debt returns …

R-Squared And Fund Selection, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

R-squared is the correlation (i.e., r) of a fund to its benchmark index multiplied by itself (i.e., squared). R-squared measures how closely a fund tracks its respective index. A recent article (see here, Wall Street Journal) suggests that investors should search for actively managed funds with low R-squareds, as this suggests the manager is truly trying to add value by concentrating on specific sectors of the benchmark universe. However, doing so increases systematic risk. So, there is a tradeoff.

Lies! Lies! Lies!, Annetta M. Gibson

Faculty Publications

Presented at the General Conference Auditing Service Seminar, January, 2013

Circuit Breakers In Response To Flash Crash, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

Following the "Flash Crash," the exchanges implemented single stock circuit breakers (in addition to the market-wide constraints that already existed). These new circuit breakers are already under review, with planned changes set to go into effect in April. See article here, Bloomberg.

Stock Market Prediction Without Sentiment Analysis: Using A Web-Traffic Based Classifier And User-Level Analysis, Pierpaolo Dondio

Conference papers

This paper provides further evidence on the predictive power of online community traffic with regard to stock prices. Using the largest dataset to date, spanning 8 years and almost the complete set of SP500 stocks, we train a classifier using a set of features entirely extracted from web-traffic data of financial online communities. The classifier is shown to outperform the predictive power of a baseline classifier solely based on price time-series, and to have similar performances as the classifier built considering price and traffic features together. The best predictive performances are achieved when information about stock capitalization is coupled with …

Retired National Football League Players' Perceptions Of Financial Decisions Made: A Phenomenological Study, John Karaffa

Faculty Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological research study was to examine the lived experiences and perceptions of 25 former National Football League (“NFL”) players regarding the financial decisions they made when active as players for information that could lead to an appropriate model for making good financial decisions. Determined in the qualitative phenomenological study were the influential factors identified by the participants in the study that focused on financial decisions made by former NFL players. The study revealed five themes: (1) wealth enablers, (2) wealth killers, (3) challenges, (4) attitudes, and (5) wealth weak spots. The results of the study …

Snow Futures?, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

Futures contracts are typically viewed as speculative investments; however, much of the activity in such contracts is the result of hedging. For example, insurance companies use weather derivatives to hedge exposure to natural disasters, while farmers and food producers would transact in agricultural futures. The most recent addition to such categories is snow futures. See article here, CME Group.

Are Hedge Funds Worth It?, Steven D. Dolvin

All Chapters

Hedge funds typically charge high fees for their services -- generally a 2% yearly management fee plus 20% of profits. When this is factored in, most investors would be better off choosing a low cost ETF. See article here, The Economist.

Personal Financial Behavior: The Influence Of Quantitative Literacy And Material Values, Pete Nye, Cinnamon Hillyard

Numeracy

Some consumers finance discretionary spending at extremely high interest rates. Many carry substantial balances on their credit cards at effective annual rates as high as 36 percent, and some pay annual rates on “pay day” loans as high as 400 percent. High interest debt can rapidly cascade into an overwhelming financial burden, threatening the consumer’s credit and long-term financial health.

This survey study investigates how quantitative literacy may promote forward-looking financial decisions, decisions that recognize the long-term consequences of current choices and may favor the future over the present. In addition, we examine the consumer’s confidence in their quantitative skills. …

2013 Private Capital Markets Report, John K. Paglia

Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Report

The Pepperdine private cost of capital survey was originally launched in 2007 and is the first comprehensive and simultaneous investigation of the major private capital market segments. This year's survey specifically examined the behavior of senior lenders, asset-based lenders, mezzanine funds, private equity groups, venture capital firms, angel investors, privately-held businesses, investment bankers, business brokers, limited partners, and business appraisers. The Pepperdine survey investigated, for each private capital market segment, the important benchmarks that must be met in order to qualify for capital, how much capital is typically accessible, what the required returns are for extending capital in today’s economic …

Momentum Strategies In Futures Markets And Trend Following Funds, Akindynos-Nikolaos Baltas, Robert Kosowski

Research Collection BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre

In this paper, we rigorously establish a relationship between time-series momentum strategies in futures markets and commodity trading advisors (CTAs) and examine the question of capacity constraints in trend-following investing. First, we construct a very comprehensive set of time-series momentum benchmark portfolios. Second, we provide evidence that CTAs follow time-series momentum strategies, by showing that such benchmark strategies have high explanatory power in the time-series of CTA index returns. Third, we do not find evidence of statistically significant capacity constraints based on two different methodologies and several robustness tests. Our results have important implications for hedge fund studies and investors.

Private Governance, Public Implications And The Tightrope Of Regulatory Reform: The Isda Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees, John Biggins, Colin Scott

Transnational Business Governance Interactions Working Papers

Regulatory relationships in financial markets exemplify the importance and changing nature of transnational business governance interactions (TBGI). These interactions involve reciprocal forces of influence between private and public regulators. This paper examines one key case of private governance in financial markets: the emergence, structures and decision-making of Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees (DCs) of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA). The paper highlights the mechanisms or 'pathways' of interaction between ISDA, governments, courts and public regulators. Interactions between state and non-state actors are shown to occur in both operational and policy spheres. ISDA is found to be a particularly resilient …

2012-2013 Financial Summary, Morehead State University. Budget & Financial Planning Office.

Morehead State University Financial Summaries Archive

2012-2013 Financial Summary of Morehead State University.

A Case Study On Risk Management: Lessons From The Collapse Of Amaranth Advisors Llc, Ludwig B. Chincarini

Finance

No abstract provided.

2012-2013 Budget Request Addenda: Southern University At New Orleans, Southern University System. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

2012-2013 BUDGET REQUEST ADDENDA: Southern University at New Orleans Campus. Information Technology Budget Request, Operational Plan, Operational or Expanded Need Budget Request, Sunset Review Budget Request, Workforce Development Budget Request.

2012-2013 Budget Request Addenda: Southern University Law Center, Southern University System. Office Of Finance And Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

The 2012-2013 Fiscal Year Budget Request Addenda for the Southern University Law Center Campus.

04. Finance, University Of Central Oklahoma

Oklahoma Research Day Abstracts

No abstract provided.

2012-2013 Budget Request Addenda, Southern University And A&M College. Office Of Finance & Administration.

All Southern University System Budgets

2012-2013 Budget Request Addenda of the Southern University Baton Rouge Campus.

Teacher Qualifications And Student Achievement: A Panel Data Of Analysis, Trevor Collier

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

Recent academic research suggests that teacher quality plays an important role in student achievement: however, empirical research on the efficacy of policies requiring teachers to obtain certain degrees is inconclusive, particularly in elementary education. This paper models a panel data production function with fixed effects using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) to asses the relationship between different undergraduate and graduate majors and elementary student test scores. Specifcally, we aim to discern if there is a difference in teacher efficacy within the different education related majors (e.g. early childhood education and elementary education) and between education and non-education related majors.