Business Commons^™

Three Essays On Hedge Fund Investments And Investment Banks, Xiaohui Yang

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on studying how investment banks affect hedge fund equity investments through acting as prime brokers for hedge funds. The first chapter studies how the relationships between hedge funds and investment banks are maintained through equity issuance and prime brokerage business. Using a comprehensive dataset of hedge funds and IPO allocations, I examine IPO allocation decisions by investment banks to hedge funds. I find that investment banks whose prime brokers have strong relationships with hedge funds and are lead underwriters of IPOs tend to allocate more IPOs to these hedge funds. Moreover, the allocation to hedge funds is …

Politically Connected Analysts, Michael B. Mcdonald

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines politically-connected equity analysts, i.e., analysts that make large political donations. I find that these big donor analysts make more accurate earnings forecasts than other small donor and non-donor analysts, and the accuracy of these forecasts decreases after a big donor analyst ceases his donations. These analysts become more accurate after they become large political donors, suggesting their enhanced performance derives from an advantage gained via their political activity. These results are stronger when (i) the analyst works or lives in the state represented by the benefiting politician, and (ii) the benefiting politician serves on a Congressional committee …

Does Analyst Experience Affect Their Understanding Of Non-Financial Information? An Analysis Of The Relation Between Patent Information And Analyst Forecast Errors, Taiwhun Taylor Joo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines whether analyst experience affects the relation between patent information and analyst forecast errors. U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles require that firms expense all in-house research and development (R&D) costs. This means that even when R&D activities produce intangible assets with future economic benefits, firms cannot capitalize R&D costs as assets. Consequently, financial statements are largely deficient in the information they provide regarding the output of R&D activities. However, patent information is one type of non-financial information about R&D output that is publicly available.

Using updated patent data, I confirm the results of prior studies that find a …