Business Commons^™

Policy Frameworks And Citizens’ Use Of Fintech Solutions: The Pros And Cons In Egypt, Salma Al-Mohamady

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of the significant influence of financial technology (FinTech) on the banking industry, consumer finance, and economic growth. It specifically concentrates on the swiftly changing FinTech environment in Egypt. The study investigates the impact of incorporating advanced technologies on worldwide financial practices, which has significantly transformed traditional banking models and facilitated the emergence of inventive financial services. The transition is clearly apparent in Egypt, where the expansion of FinTech has been driven by advances in regulations, adaptation to technology, and a population that is becoming more comfortable with digital solutions.

Using a combination of quantitative …

Valuing Circularity: Sustainable Finance With Real Options Methodology, Mostafa Alloub

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an enhanced framework for valuing circular investments based on the Value Hill model using real options analysis. We propose a new flexible numerical methodology for valuing circularity using the Least Squares Monte Carlo simulation (LSMC) method of Longstaff and Schwartz (2001). The Value Hill model of circularity represents the course followed by the value of an asset, specifically after primary use. To validate the efficiency of our model, we conduct an empirical study on the smartphone business using the case of Apple. Results of our empirical analysis show that investing in circularity enhances financial value. Our model …

Is Esg A Determinant Of Banks’ Resilience And Growth Everywhere? A Response From An Ai-Aided Approach, Mohamed Elklawy

Theses and Dissertations

There are many calls for banks to expand their contribution to the transition towards a sustainable world by sponsoring initiatives that promote the United National Sustainable Development Goals. This role is more materialized in developing countries as banks are the key source of funding; thus, they have the power of money to mutate the DNA of businesses to operate responsibly with respect to the surrounding environment and society. Various studies consider the reflection of adopting sustainable approaches by banks, though focusing on developed countries who took the initiative to lead this change. As the banks in developing countries try to …

An Examination Of The Determinants Of Ease Of Doing Business: Perspectives From World Economies, Omar Eldarawy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis’ purpose is to explore the correlation between Ease of Doing Business sub-scores and the overall Ease of Doing Business score. The study includes a detailed quantitative study into the previously mentioned relationship. The Ease of Doing Business sub-scores comprise of scores representing starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency. This is conducted via a series of diagnostic tests to identify an appropriate regression model. These tests include the Hausman Test, RESET Test, and Breusch-Pagan Test. Based on the tests, …

An Examination Of The Impacts Of Macroeconomic Indicators On Conventional And Islamic Equity Fund Returns: Perspectives From The Mena Region, Amr Elshabouny

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the performance of conventional and Islamic equity mutual funds in the MENA region, and the influence of major macroeconomic determinants on the two types, by analyzing 503 conventional and 128 Shariah-compliant funds. It incorporates three major macroeconomic variables using Generalized Linear Models (GLM). The findings indicate no significant superiority of Islamic funds over conventional ones. The study also notes that while market performance and foreign exchange rates positively affect both fund types, GDP growth and inflation have a negative impact. Islamic funds are less influenced by excess market returns, GDP growth, and inflation compared to conventional funds, …

Optimizing Repayment Strategies For Egyptian Construction Companies With Multiple Loans, Moataz Elkady

Theses and Dissertations

Optimizing Repayment Strategies for Egyptian Construction Companies with Multiple Loans is of utmost importance to efficiently allocate monthly income for loan repayment. The conventional practice of paying the minimum balance due each month leads to increased interest charges and prolonged repayment periods. In response, this research proposes a model for multiple loan repayment that considers the computational complexity involved.

The model is built on the foundation of mixed integer linear programming and aims to establish an optimal repayment schedule by minimizing the total cash required to repay the loans, prioritizing the repayment of loans before personal expenses. The implementation of …

Assessing The Effect Of Fintech Adoption On Country's Productivity, Mai Metwally

Theses and Dissertations

The relationship between total factor productivity of countries, for both low-income and high-income countries, and Fintech adoption will be examined in this paper. Also, a background on Fintech history will be discussed and explored briefly along with Fintech future risks and opportunities. Starting off with the importance of TFP, it is also known to be "Solow residual" (named after American Economist "Robert Solow"). TFP shows and examines the performance along with efficiency of the entity or country. It shows how well and efficient the firm or country in transforming its inputs to the desired outputs. Moreover, it is the ratio …

Fintech Companies Valuation Using Real Options: Fawry Empirical Study, Yassmen Abou Elwafa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an improved valuation approach for Fintech companies, which are high-growth technology-based firms. We first identify the shortcomings of traditional valuation methods in valuing high-growth technology firms. Then, an alternative valuation technique based on real options theory is discussed to value fintech companies. The relevance and validity of using real options valuation to value fintech firms are also discussed. We propose a new flexible framework for valuing fintech companies by extending the Schwartz-Moon (2001) model to include various types of real options. To validate the practical application of the Extended Schwartz-Moon model, we conduct an empirical study to …

Navigating Uncertainty: The Role Of Gold, Silver, Oil, Cryptocurrency, And Esg Indices In The Mena Region, Rahaf Zakaria Sakr

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effectiveness of various financial instruments as hedges and safe havens during different market conditions in the MENA region. It compares traditional safe-haven investments ( gold, silver, and oil) and non-traditional safe-havens (cryptocurrencies and ESG stocks) to determine which investments function better as hedges and safe havens during different market conditions. The data covers eight years, starting in 2015 and ending in early 2023. DCC GARCH is utilized to examine time variation in conditional correlations. This study finds that Gold, Silver, and cryptocurrency can be considered strong hedges to the MENA market on average and weak safe …

Three Essays On New Issues In Corporate Finance, Abdullah Shoeb

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on three new issues in corporate finance, each aiming at different aspects of a firm's behavior. First, I propose a novel way to classify domestic manufacturing firms based on their level of financial constraint. Using the operating cash flow ratio as my new measure, I find that the behavior of constrained and unconstrained firms differ significantly, unlike existing constraint measures from the literature. My results indicate that constrained firms cannot engage in equity recycling, have a higher sensitivity to cash flow, use the proceeds from the sales of their fixed assets in R&D, and cannot change leverage …

Stock Splits And Corporate Peer Effects, Albert J. Saad

Theses and Dissertations

We find that a company’s decision to execute a stock split is affected by the number of stock splits carried out by its peers. Through the use of a broad peer group construction methodology, we also reveal the presence of asymmetric effects with regard to companies of different market capitalization size. In the periods of 1983–1996 and 1997–2009 we find that firms are more likely to split their stock if more of their peers have recently done so. However, in the period of 2010–2019 we see that the opposite is true. These results provide further evidence on social learning from …

Lobbying – A Financial Perspective, Sean Byrne

Theses and Dissertations

U.S. based bank holding companies (BHCs) exert influence at every step in the legislative process where financial regulatory reforms are enacted into law, such as the Dodd-Frank Act, to promulgation of regulations. In Chapter II, we maintain that BHCs, upon facing salient regulation, lobby regulators to have their opinions heard with the goal of favorable regulatory change and to increase non-traditional revenues. We undertook a novel collection of political and financial data from 2003 to 2018, matching 180 pairs of parsed proposed and final regulations. BHCs that participated in commenting on proposed rules are highly successful at having their views …

The Relationships Among Financial Literacy, Financial Behaviors, Financial Attitudes, And Homeownership Within Low-Moderate Income Households In Los Angeles County, Aliyu Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how financial literacy, financial capability, financial self-efficacy, and future time perspective affect the likelihood of low-moderate income (LMI) households in Los Angeles County owning a home and holding a mortgage. It draws on existing literature on financial literacy, financial capability, financial self-efficacy, future time perspective, and homeownership to develop a theoretical framework that identifies the factors that influence LMI households’ access to homeownership. Using secondary data merged from six surveys conducted by the University of Southern California (USC) Understanding America Study (UAS) from 2015 to 2022, it analyzes the relationships among financial literacy, financial behaviors, financial attitudes, …

The Effect Of Climate Change On Firm Level Costs With Focus On Mena Region, Farah Osama Saieed

Theses and Dissertations

This paper has a main objective of identifying the relationship between environmental factors and climate change on operating costs incurred by firms. This paper also attempts to compare the direction and intensity of the effect on different sectors in order to analyze whether climate change effect differs based on the nature of the business operations. Several papers have previously addressed the relationship between climate change factors ad profits. This literature will add to previous studies by observing the effect on the cost rather than the profits. In addition to providing results that minimize endogeneity, which is found in a large …

Using Blockchain To Track Dod Funding And Auditing, Prithvi Prasanna

Theses and Dissertations

The Department of Defense (DoD) currently faces a significant problem when it comes to auditing and tracking financial transactions. The DoD has failed every audit since 2017 although it is gradually improving its auditable rating year after year. Concurrently, Blockchain is an emerging technology that has typically been used for cryptocurrencies but has slowly been adapted by private enterprises for their auditing and invoicing problems. This study investigates the value proposition of blockchain technology to improve DoD financial tracking and auditing. To test the hypothesis that blockchain is the optimal option for the DoD, this paper employs an industry blockchain …

Essays On International Banking Regulation, Wenqing Gao

Theses and Dissertations

The first chapter analyzes the impact of macroprudential policies on bank systemic risk worldwide. Using data from 63 countries over 2001-2017, I find strong evidence that macroprudential policies are effective in reducing systemic risk at the country level. The effectiveness of macroprudential policies differs across countries in the sample. Macroprudential policies are more effective in reducing systemic risk in countries with more advanced economic development, with a higher degree of concentration in the banking sector, and with less stringent micro-prudential regulations. Bank-level evidence suggests that bank size matters. The impact of macroprudential policies on constraining bank systemic risk is more …

Can Blockchain-Supply Chain Announcements Create Shareholder Value? Evidence From An Event Study For International Initiatives, Alyaa Saleh

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how Blockchain based Supply chain (BC-SC) announcements impact the stock market performance of the announcing firms. Using a sample of 104 news and firm announcements between 2016 and July 2021, we conduct an international event study to determine the effect of BC-SC announcements on the market performance. We find that an overall significantly positive market reaction of 1.45% to all BC-SC announcements on the announcement day. In addition, we find that the stock market reaction slightly differs when different SC challenges are targeted by the announcing firm. When blockchain is used for traceability purposes, the market response …

The Effect Of Company Financial Health On The Likelihood Of Cost Overruns, Brady C. Weaver

Theses and Dissertations

Financial ratio analysis has long been used to determine the financial health of firms and project business performance. Despite the usefulness of financial ratio analysis, risk analysis in defense acquisitions largely ignores these indicators of company financial well-being. This research performs contingency table statistical analysis to determine if a relationship exists between company financial ratios and their future cost performance on Air Force contracts. The general findings are that poor financial ratios at the time of contract start are related to increased likelihood of cost overruns on that contract. Specifically, recent trends of a company’s current ratio in comparison to …

Analysis Of Cost And Schedule Estimation Trends For Major Defense Acquisition Programs, Sammantha J. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

This study uses both descriptive and inferential techniques to investigate trends in cost and schedule estimates created by the Department of Defense for their Major Defense Acquisition Programs (MDAPs) throughout the last five decades. For schedule growth percentages, we did not identify any statistically significant trend regarding increasing or decreasing schedule changes or variances of schedule estimates throughout the five decades analyzed. Examining the overall cost growth of MDAPs, a statistically significant difference between the Cost Growth Factors (CGFs) calculated between the 1990s and the 2010s was found, with the 2010s exhibiting lower CGFs. A downward trend in the variances …

Analytical Model For Predicting Bitcoin Price, Bianca Berman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships between Bitcoin and several financial metrics, such as indices and commodities, in efforts to reveal any influential significance between a specific variable and the price value of Bitcoin. The interested parties pertaining to this research include investors of crypto, university students specializing in business, or current shareholders of Bitcoin. The indices being analyzed for this research consist of the following: Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Index, Russell 2000, Nikkei 225, S&P 500 Volatility Index (VIX), and the Shanghai SE Composite Index. The commodities being analyzed for this research …

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 …

Two Essays On Corporate Finance, Md Noman Hossain

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays on corporate finance. In my first essay, we investigate whether and, if so, how the information disclosure preferences differ systematically between Republican CEOs and Democrat CEOs in the context of management earnings forecasts. We find that Republican CEOs tend to prefer a less asymmetric information environment than Democrat CEOs, and thus make more frequent, timelier, and more accurate disclosures than Democrat CEOs. Results using the propensity score-matched sample and the difference-in-differences analysis show that our results are unlikely to be driven by potential endogeneity. Our results are robust to controlling for various CEO characteristics, …

Two Essays On Finance Of Climate Change, Abdullah Al Masum

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays on the finance of climate change. In the first essay, we find robust empirical evidence that firms in locations with higher exposure to climate change pay significantly higher spreads on their bank loans. To alleviate the concerns related to using firms’ headquarters in determining climate risk exposure, we exploit the economic link between a firm and its customers and find that the exposure of a firm’s customers to climate risk also adversely affects that firm’s cost of borrowing. In the cross-section, we find that the long-term loans of poorly rated firms drive the effect. …

Essays In Workplace Safety Issues In Finance, Md Ruhul Amin

Theses and Dissertations

I examine how firms address workplace safety issues considering their value implication. In my first essay, I investigate the relation between workplace safety and inside debt held by the CEO in form of pension benefits and deferred compensation. To mitigate the endogeneity of CEO inside debt design, I exploit variation generated by the implementation of the Internal Revenue Code Section 409A Final Regulations. Consistent with the long-term orientation hypothesis, I find strong evidence of lower establishment-level work-related injuries and illnesses in firms whose CEOs have higher relative inside debt. I also document that CEOs inside debt holdings are associated with …

Trading The Days Vs. Days Of Trading: An Empirical Literature Survey On Calendar Anomalies Across Markets, Mariam Ashraf Kiryakos

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical review of over five decades of research on two of the most examined calendar anomalies: the day-of-the-week and weekend effect. The expansive literature is classified into five different phases to demonstrate and review the evolution of research on these two seasonal anomalies. It also reconciles empirically the seemingly contradicting evidence documented by prior studies by adopting the lens of Adaptive Market Hypothesis (AMH) and conducting a cross-market analysis on the two calendar anomalies using the headline stock market indices of the ten largest economies by GDP as of 2019. The main methodology …

Stock Market Manipulation Detection Using Continuous Wavelet Transform & Machine Learning Classification, Sarah Youssef

Theses and Dissertations

Stock market manipulation detection is important for both investors and regulators. Being able to detect stock manipulation and preventing it gives investors the confidence in the market fairness and integrity. It also helps maintaining liquidity of the stocks and market efficiency. Implementing data mining algorithms in manipulation detection is a relatively recent technique but in the past few years there has been an increasing interest in it's applications in this domain. The benefit of monitoring manipulative trade behavior is that it can be implemented on live feed of stock data, which saves a lot of time in detecting stock price …

An Intelligent Market Cycle Detection System, Michael Azer

Theses and Dissertations

The detection of stock market cycles has attracted the attention of finance scholars and market practitioners. Accurately identifying the direction of a market can significantly increase the returns of investors. Despite this importance, conventional methodologies in the literature have predominantly attempted to evaluate the effect of subsets of factors as precedents to stock market cycles and with little agreement on what constitutes critical factors. There seems to be a lack in the literature for a comprehensive study that examines a multitude of factors at the same time on the S&P500 as the laboratory. Factors are categorized into: political events, economic …

An Examination Of The Determinants Of Optimal Corporate Credit Hegde: Perspectives From Firms Listed In Djia30 And Nasdaq100, Dina Rofael

Theses and Dissertations

Raising number of corporate defaults could threaten the financial stability, thus modelling credit risk is a key ingredient of financial stability analysis. This paper tries to answer a specific question regarding the drivers of this risk: idiosyncratic risk (industry-specific or firm-specific) and/or systematic risk (macro-economic specific). As a first step, the paper estimates the optimal hedge ratio based on the interest coverage ratio, that acts as a measure for the probability of default. Against this background, the paper applies one of the fundamental-based models of credit risk, known as hybrid model after estimating the proposed indicator variable. The suggested model …

Stock Prediction Using Natural Language Processing Sentiment Analysis On News Headlines During Covid-19, Mina Ibrahim

Theses and Dissertations

Stock prediction based on NLP sentiment analysis is one of the most researched topics due to the revenues they generate for investors. Researchers have used various tools to achieve this, especially fundamental and technical analysis based on historical data helped to achieve this target. Due to the technological advancement and abundance of data, the introduction of machine learning tools accelerated that approach. However, as the public mood affects the stock market, the need for another analysis emerged. Natural language processing sentiment analysis on data from various sources was able to capture public events and moods. NLP is one of the …

Stock Markets Performance During A Pandemic: How Contagious Is Covid-19?, Yara Abushahba

Theses and Dissertations

Background and Motivation: The coronavirus (“COVID-19”) pandemic, the subsequent policies and lockdowns have unarguably led to an unprecedented fluid circumstance worldwide. The panic and fluctuations in the stock markets were unparalleled. It is inarguable that real-time availability of news and social media platforms like Twitter played a vital role in driving the investors’ sentiment during such global shock.

Purpose:The purpose of this thesis is to study how the investor sentiment in relation to COVID-19 pandemic influenced stock markets globally and how stock markets globally are integrated and contagious. We analyze COVID-19 sentiment through the Twitter posts and investigate its …