Business Commons^™

Foreign Investment And Equity Valuation Differences In Emerging Markets, Daniel N. Beardsley

Honors Scholar Theses

This paper will focus on emerging markets, with an emphasis on Brazil, Russia, India, and China (i.e, the BRIC countries). Specifically, I will explore foreign investment trends related to these economies.

I will also explore valuation trends for emerging market-based equities. For instance, are valuation differences between emerging market-based and developed market-based equities statistically significant? What role does country risk play in the valuation of equities based in certain emerging markets? The discussion of these topics will include the use of relevant examples and effective statistical testing.

From Empire To Independence: The Curious Case Of The Baltic States 1917-1922, Dovile O. Vilkauskaite

Honors Scholar Theses

Many historians have looked at the interim period of the Baltic States between World War I and World War II, and their independence movements. However, there are few substantial works that look at the complex and interrelated histories of how Russian and American foreign policy shaped the Baltic independence movements and subsequently gained international recognition. This paper will try to address how and why the Baltic States were able to gain and maintain their independence by external forces and then gain formal recognition by the United States in 1922. To gain my results, I analyzed some of Lenin’s translated writings …

Achieving Change In Students' Attitudes Toward Group Projects By Teaching Group Skills, Lawrence Hamer, Robert O'Keefe

College of Business Faculty and Staff Works

Despite the many positive benefits which can be derived from group assignments, faculty members frequently report that students generally dislike being assigned to a group project. This paper reports a quasi-experiment which presented students with information about the relevance and importance of group skills during the time in which they were working on an assigned group project, and then measured the students' attitudes toward group projects. The reported study demonstrates that instructors can alter students' perceptions of group work by incorporating instruction about group skills into group assignments.

When The Pcaob Talks, Who Listens? Evidence From Stakeholder Reaction To Gaap-Deficient Pcaob Inspection Reports Of Small Auditors, Lawrence J. Abbott, Katherine A. Gunny, Tracey Chunqi Zhang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Section 104 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) created the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB). The PCAOB conducts inspections of registered public accounting firms that provide audits for publicly traded companies. The results of the inspection process are summarized in publicly available reports at the PCAOB website. Using these reports, we categorize the inspection reports into three levels of increasing severity: clean, GAAS-deficient, and GAAP-deficient. We examine the potential use of GAAP-deficient PCAOB inspection reports as perceived audit quality signals for the clients of GAAP-deficient auditors that are inspected on a triennial basis by the PCAOB. Our investigation is predicated …

Do Mutual Fund Managers Outperform By Low-Balling Their Benchmarks?, Matthew James Scala

Financial Analyst

Do mutual fund managers outperform through a bias toward smaller-cap stocks than represented by the benchmark index? This study attempts to explain mutual fund outperformance through testing the average market cap (AMC) of mutual funds relative to their respective benchmark indexes. If outperforming funds show a bias toward smaller average holdings, then outperformance may be attributed to the value premium associated with small-cap stocks. Using Morningstar Direct, excess returns and average market cap of Holdings were collected on a quarterly basis for 1542 actively managed funds citing the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 and Russell 2000 as their primary benchmark. …

Going Green In The Coffee Business: A Stock Market Perspective, Jeffrey Spiletic

Accounting

Concern for the environment has been freely expressed by many individuals across the globe. Research has shown that customers, employees, and stockholders are more trustworthy of a company that practices socially responsible behavior. This paper will examine whether investors will prefer to invest in a company that has committed itself to reducing its environment footprint over a company that has done little or nothing to reduce its environmental impact. This will be done by comparing and contrasting the beta coefficients, share price movement, and the price to earnings ratio of two companies that differ in their attitude towards the environment. …

Does Going Green Mean Losing Green? Bank Of America Vs Jpmorgan Chase, Heather Goldstein

Accounting

This research thesis is an investigation into whether companies implementing a “going green” strategy will compromise their financial performance. The primary focus was on two large financial institutions, one clearly committed to going green and the other less interested in doing so: Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. The assessment centered on specific financial measurement points for the fiscal years of 2010 and 2011. Concern for health and wellbeing of the earth is growing exponentially, however, in order to sustain the movement it is imperative that companies join the green initiatives. Nevertheless, companies must achieve specific thresholds of financial performance …

An Empirical Investigation Into The Informativeness Of Earnings, Joyce Tseng

Accounting

Accounting earnings are widely used by investors, creditors and financial analysts as a measure of operating performance in valuing firms. However, accountants trade off relevance in decision making in favor of reliability in computing earnings. This study uses an analysis based on stock prices to examine the effectiveness of the earnings number in measuring the operating performance of a firm under different situations where it may be less accurate: when Research and Development Expense, Pension Expense, Special Items, and Income from Discontinued Operations are disproportionately large in magnitude. The results are generally consistent with my hypotheses. The results of this …

Restaurants: Do Healthy Menus Mean Positive Financial Performance? A Case Study Of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Cara N. Veneziano

Accounting

The purpose of this study is to assess the consequences of offering healthy menus versus providing historically popular fast foods. Healthier foods are better for society and being able to understand how serving healthier menus will impact the financial performance of a company is crucial. I focus my attention on Chipotle Mexican Grill since it has been making a concerted effort to provide healthier foods. I have selected McDonald’s Corporation as a benchmark comparison. My specific investigative question is: Does a healthier menu translate into greater profits. My study begins with a comparison of Chipotle and McDonald’s meal options and …

The Underpricing Of M/A-Com Technology Solutions, Inc. At The Ipo That Leads To Long-Term Underperformance, Joseph Doramus

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The underpricing of initial public offerings leads to long-term underperformance. There are many reasons why this may happen, but for this study, the focus is on the lower offering price investors are granted for taking on the high risk of investing in an initial public offering as well as an investment bank keeping a good reputation. The stock return for M/A-Com Technology Solutions Holding, Inc. on the first day shows the underpricing. Underperformance follows after the initial public offering date for M/A-COM Technology Solutions, Inc. This is shown by the comparison of MTSI to the MTSI Index as well as …

Indication With Further Analysis Of Mispricing And Barriers In Arbitrage In Chinese Option Market A Five-Month Study On Sample Option, Hao Feng

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis presents indication of mispricing of options in the Chinese option market, focusing on the very first and the most representative option in the Chinese option market. I used the Black-Scholes model to calculate the option price and compare the result to its real performance. The mispricing of sample option is statistically significant. With further analysis, I found out that underlying asset price and its volatility are the possible factors that most likely lead to mispricing. Because of the consistent mispricing, I investigated the industrial regulations from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and found proof with examples that …

Too Small To Forget: An Analysis Of The Changing Banking Industry And The Continuing Importance Of Smaller Institutions, Michael A. Flaherty

Honors Scholar Theses

Since the early 1980s, the United States banking industry has undergone a variety of structural changes. In 1980, there were over 14,000 banking institutions; now, there are about 6,000 institutions remaining. In addition to the declining number of institutions, industry assets have become more highly concentrated in several very large institutions. For example, the percentage of industry assets held by banks with $10 billion or more in assets (adjusted for inflation) has increased from about 46% in 1992 to 80% in 2012.

Many of the structural changes came in response to a changing regulatory environment. Banking regulations began to shift …

Cracking The Tax Codes: How State Tax Laws Influence The Number Of Manufacturing Jobs Within Their Borders, Nick Lorenson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

With the recent economic downturn, jobs have been at the forefront of people’s concerns. Policy makers in every state have promised their constituents new jobs. Of particular importance are high paying jobs. Manufacturing jobs tend to be a well-paying and highly sought after form of employment. However, in recent decades, the percentage of manufacturing jobs has been declining in the United States. Also, manufacturing facilities have shown an increased likelihood of relocating to different states. I theorize that manufacturing facilities relocating and expanding in different states is primarily due to state tax policies. This phenomenon has increased within recent years …

Applications Of Search Theory In Finance, Hongyu Song

Finance - Dissertations

In this dissertation, I apply two types of search based theoretical models to interpret two important issues in finance, respectively. (1)The first essay belongs to the field of corporate finance, in which a random search model is set up to describe the pre-IPO market searching and matching process between private firms with intent to sell equity in an IPO and investment banks (IB) that underwrite the issue. Our model tightly links many IPO-related phenomena such as IPO underpricing and long run underperformance under one unified searching framework. (2) The second essay is related to market microstructure, i.e. bid-ask spread, in …

Studies In Income, Investment, And Stock Returns: The Permanent Income Hypothesis And The Overinvestment Puzzle, Insun Yang

Finance - Dissertations

Increased sales drive earnings; increased earnings drive investment; and increased investment drives higher stock returns. In this dissertation, I studied the relationship of sales income, firm investment increase and stock returns. The first paper, titled "Permanent Income and Investment", investigates the relationship between changes in sales income and levels of investment. When firms experience increases in sales that they consider to be permanent, the present value of expected profits also increase, leading to increases in the firms' investments. Firm's investment behavior is primarily explained by permanent changes in sales incomes and not by transitory change. The second paper, titled "Firm …

Motivations Behind Traveling To Dark Tourism Destinations: A Qualitative Study For Future Marketing Campaign Targeting Dark Tourism To Chernobyl, Oleksandra Korotchuk

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

In 2011, the Ukrainian government granted tourist access to a place where one of the worst nuclear disasters in history occurred – Chernobyl. Since then, Chernobyl became the hottest Dark Tourism destination, attracting those who want to see the abandoned ghost-town of Pripyat, a place that 40,000 people used to call home. After the entire city was evacuated in a matter of hours, their belongings were left in pristine condition, disturbed only by the passage of time. Now, thousands of curious travel to Pripyat for guided tours of the Alienation Zone. These so-called Dark Tourists travel to destinations where death …

Oureconomy: Social Impact In Syracuse, Daniel Cowen

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

In today’s society we rely on non-profits and government institutions to ameliorate our most pressing problems. Everyday these organizations employees work tirelessly to help people most in need. Their efforts are recognized and commendable, but they are constantly limited by countless restraints like lack of funding, slow service innovation, and accurate impact measurement tools. Implementing a new sector that would effectively combat the problems that organizations battle when they are doing their best to solve other people’s problems would exponentially improve services.

In this paper I start by outlining the societal problems that are especially prevalent in Syracuse, but characteristic …

Wired Women: Understanding And Reaching The 18-24 Year Old Women Of Today, Jessica David

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Wired Women represent a segment of the larger millennial generation that has not previously been looked at as a singular target. Previous generational spans of 15-20 have until now successfully identified people of similar tastes, behavior and experience. The increased rate of technological discovery and innovation that has taken place over the past 25 years has caused a generational divide within millennials. It is necessary that this group of 18-24 year old women be examined separately from older millennial women as well as their same-aged male cohorts.

18-24 year old women represent an opportunity for advertisers to reach a group …

The Heteronormative Objectification Of Women In The Disney Princess Films: A Study Of Brand Advertising And Parents’ Perceptions, Melanie Greenblatt

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Although the Disney Princess franchise portrays its ten princess movies as tales of “happily ever after,” they are filled with negative stereotypes of all kinds; this study in particular focuses on those addressed towards females. Each of these princesses lives in a patriarchal society and her sole desire is to find a man who guides her to happiness. The Princess brand has immense popularity even with these unconstructive stigmatizations of women. This study explores these movies while investigating, through qualitative research, the potency of these stereotypes and whether the parents of the target audience (defined by Disney as ages three …

The Perfect Balance: Combining Global And Local Strategies For Effective International Public Relations, Anne Frances Krengel

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This paper discusses the benefits of using a combination of global and local public relations tactics to optimize global marketing activities and reach target publics. It also compares various cultures and public relations practices around the world, and offers examples of international public relations campaigns that have successfully reached their target markets by incorporating global strategies with cultural twists that are specifically tailored to local communities. In today’s progressively more globalized world, where people are connecting more quickly than ever before, it is vital that organizations know how to communicate correctly. While many theorists prefer either global strategies or local …

Israel’S Travel And Tourism Public Relations, Jillian Marom

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Israel’s geopolitical location and conflict with its surrounding neighbors has resulted in constant negative media coverage and poor public perception of the country. As a result of the ongoing turmoil and biased media reports, the country’s tourism industry has failed to live up to its dreams and expectations. In an attempt to fully understand Israel’s travel and tourism industry, the researcher wrote a case study analysis that analyzes Israel’s PR efforts and media campaigns that are created to brand the country and change its negative image in the media. Through online research, news articles, scholarly journals and in-person interviews, the …

Major League Soccer Case Study An Examination Into The Future Of The League, Matt Samost

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Major League Soccer has grown tremendously since its inception in 1996. The league, however, still is a work in progress. The overarching question of this case study deals with an examination into the future of the league. Will it continue to be a niche sport on the American sports landscape or will it challenge the big four leagues in the years to come? Broken into five subtopics, the case study looks to address this question by examining the league through multiple lenses in order to be able to take both an in-depth and wide look at the current condition of …

Determinants Of Major League Baseball Player Salaries, Tyler Wasserman

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

In 2003, Michael Lewis published Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, which forever changed the finances and economics of baseball. It began a movement towards using advanced statistical analysis to determine the value of baseball players, in order to build a roster that will win the most games at the lowest cost. The Moneyball movement has resulted in a multitude of new statistics to try to drill a player’s value down to one number that represents his marginal revenue product, or his individual contribution to the team’s success.

Player salaries are typically the largest cost for Major …

The Struggle For Power And Pay: Implications Of Board Of Directors' Power On Monitoring Effectiveness And Pay For Performance Sensitivity, Mariana Judith Lebron

Business Administration - Dissertations

Boards of directors monitor and incentivize CEOs to make decisions that maximize shareholder value; however, research has been inconsistent in identifying the relationship between board composition and monitoring effectiveness (Daily, Johnson, Ellstrand, & Dalton, 1998). Integrating an economic perspective (agency theory) with a socio-psychological perspective (upper echelon theory), this paper examines how outsiders' and insiders' power bases relate to pay-for-performance by proposing and empirically examining a multi-dimensional model of board power bases: ownership, prestige, and structural. I argue that board structural and composition characteristics can be used as proxy indicators of board power. Using data from 37, 066 directors of …

A Study On Various Economic Factors Influencing Student Loan Cohort Default Rates, Jessamyn Ratcliff

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

In June 2010, student loan debt rose to over $800 billion, surpassing total credit card debt outstanding for the first time. Along with the increase in the amount borrowed to pay for education, so too, is the percentage of default rates. The analysis presented suggests that cohort default rates increase in number proportionately to annual unemployment rates, while exhibiting an inverse relationship with the average student loan debt upon graduation.

The Value Of Nongovernmental Free Vocational Training In Vietnam; The Opportunities And Barriers In Teaching Japanese Cooking Skills To Disadvantaged Vietnamese Youth, Koji Asada

Capstone Collection

Nongovernmental free vocational training for disadvantaged youth has been provided by various organizations in the world and has had a positive impact on the learners. This is also true in Vietnam.

However, how is the training geared to employment opportunities, designed to overcome challenges to learning and employment, and with what potential impact on the learners and communities. These questions have not been well answered.

This study examines the value of nongovernmental free vocational training in Hanoi city, Vietnam, which is in the middle of rapid economic development. Specifically, this study researched the future prospects of skill training in Japanese …

Microequity A New Model For Microfinance In The U.S, Joseph Ball

HIM 1990-2015

Most of the research on microfinance focuses on the microloan activities of microfinance institutions such as Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and Banco Sol of South America. These institutions make small loans to the poor to help them engage in income generating activities. Many organizations have tried to translate this practice to the United States, but due to fundamental differences between the advanced U.S. business environment and that found in the developing world, such attempts have been met with limited success. There is a substantial amount of research on microfinance institutions and activities in the U.S., however almost all of the …

Will Leasing Lose Its Luster: An Analysis Of Lease Reporting Under Fas 13, Casey Gates

HIM 1990-2015

When standards for financial reporting are amended, potential for change in the appearance of financial position for companies reporting under those standards arises. Currently standards set forth by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) allow for two methods of reporting lease obligations on the financial statements. The first of these methods is the operating method, which allows lease payments to be expensed within the period they are incurred and only a decrease in cash or an increase in an account payable is recognized on the balance sheet. The second method is the capital method, which requires the present value of …

How Sports Franchises Communicate Via Social Media, Christopher Jones

HIM 1990-2015

The aim of the research is to evaluate how professional sport organizations communicate via social media and lay groundwork on how to effectively do so in the future. The research focuses on the history of social media and its involvement in sport, how it's used today, examples of effective communication and how it can eventually drive revenue for a sport franchise and build a stronger fan base at the same time.

Expectancy Theory And Major League Baseball Player Compensation, Edward Leonard

HIM 1990-2015

Major League Baseball (MLB) organizations spend millions of dollars each year on athletes with the end goal of winning a World Series title. However when an organization signs a player to a long term contract are they actually receiving the production that they paid for? Under the MLB's current form of player compensation players may not be properly motivated or at least not motivated to perform at their highest level. The intent of this thesis was to apply expectancy theory in assessing Major League Baseball's current form of player compensation. It evaluates how well players are currently motivated to perform …