Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Three Essays On Corporate Acquisitions, Bidders' Liquidity, And Monitoring, Huihua Li

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on corporate acquisitions, bidders’ liquidity and monitoring. In the first essay, “Acquisitions and Bidders’ Liquidity: Evidence from Successful and Unsuccessful Takeovers”, I examine the impact of corporate acquisitions on bidders’ liquidity. I find that liquidity improves for bidders that complete the takeovers but remains unchanged or decreases for unsuccessful bidders. Takeovers of public firms result in similar liquidity improvements as do takeovers of private firms. Takeovers that use stock as the method of payment have significantly more improvement in liquidity than takeovers that use cash as the payment method. These results suggest that changes …

Essays On Mutual Fund Governance And The Advisory Fee Contracts, Yaman Erzurum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three studies related to corporate governance of equity mutual funds in a framework of relations between the three closely interrelated actors of mutual fund industry. The mutual fund advisers, the shareholders and the mutual fund board being the advocate of shareholders rights. The first study analyzes the advisory fee, using a survivorship bias free data set of 176 equity funds managed by 125 different advisers. The price of professional portfolio management provided by the mutual fund adviser depends not only on the fund characteristics but also on the fund objective, the adviser's portfolio related and management …

Financial Efficiency In The Nonprofit Sector: An Analysis Of Factors Affecting Expense Ratios Of Kentucky Nonprofits, Emily A. Lane

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Statement of Problem

Recent events in both the public and private sectors have lead to an environment of mistrust and caution surrounding the way organizations are managed and funds are handled. For the nonprofit sector, this has led to an emergence of charity rating or watchdog organizations and increased scrutiny of finances. Individual donors, charity rating agencies, and funding institutions have begun using expense ratios as a measure of financial efficiency. Decisions on the financial efficiency of organizations are being made without a good understanding of what factors affect these ratios.

Research Questions

The purpose of this paper is to …

Intraday Stock Prices, Volume, And Duration: A Nonparametric Conditional Density Analysis, Anthony S. Tay, Christopher Ting

Research Collection School Of Economics

We investigate the distribution of high-frequency price changes, conditional on trading volume and duration between trades, on four stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The conditional probabilities are estimated nonparametrically using local polynomial regression methods. We find substantial skewness in the distribution of price changes, with the direction of skewness dependent on the sign of trade. We also find that the probability of larger price changes increases with volume, but only for trades that occur with longer durations. The distribution of price changes vary with duration primarily when volume is high.

Empirical Evidence On Jurisdictions That Adopt Ifrs, Ole-Kristian Hope, Justin Jin, Tony Kang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have recently been adopted in a number of jurisdictions, including the European Union. Despite the importance of IFRS in the context of global accounting standards harmonization, little is known regarding what institutional factors influence countries' decisions to voluntarily adopt IFRS. This issue is relevant to standard-setters because a better understanding of the motivations for adoption will enable them to promote IFRS more effectively to countries that currently do not employ IFRS. Consistent with bonding theory, we find that countries with weaker investor protection mechanisms are more likely to adopt IFRS. Our evidence also shows that …

Information Value Of Credit Ratings In Asia Ex-Japan Markets, Chen Zhou

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This study investigates the information value of credit ratings by exploring the relationship between ratings and security price. Unlike previous studies, we concentrate on the major markets ex-Japan in Asia. We begin with an investigation of rating reclassification as well as credit watch placement events by three leading international rating agencies. We show that markets with differing level of sophistication behave differently. Specifically, South Korea and Hong Kong are found to respond in a similar manner. Indonesia shows possible ign of information leakage. In the cases of Malaysia and Thailand, significant and positive equity price responses exist for upgrades, suggesting …

Supply And Demand Shifts In The Shorting Market, Lauren Cohen, Karl B. Diether, Christopher J. Malloy

Faculty Publications

Using proprietary data on stock loan fees and quantities from a large institutional investor, we examine the link between the shorting market and stock prices. Employing a unique identification strategy, we isolate shifts in the supply and demand for shorting. We find that shorting demand is an important predictor of future stock returns: An increase in shorting demand leads to negative abnormal returns of 2.98% in the following month. Second, we show that our results are stronger in environments with less public information flow, suggesting that the shorting market is an important mechanism for private information revelation.

Indirect Inference For Dynamic Panel Models, Christian Gourieroux, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

It is well-known that maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of the autoregressive parameter of a dynamic panel data model with fixed effects is inconsistent under fixed time series sample size (T) and large cross section sample size (N) asymptotics. The estimation bias is particularly relevant in practical applications when T is small and the autoregressive parameter is close to unity. The present paper proposes a general, computationally inexpensive method of bias reduction that is based on indirect inference (Gouriéroux et al., 1993), shows unbiasedness and analyzes efficiency. The method is implemented in a simple linear dynamic panel model, but has wider …

Divergent Opinions And Value Stock Performance, John A. Doukas

Finance Faculty Publications

Those who believe that capital markets—that is, markets for stocks and bonds—operate efficiently and asset prices fully reflect all publicly available information are engaged in an ongoing debate about the exact interpretation of the “value premium” with those who reject this view. Value premium refers to the superior returns generated by the purchase of value stocks relative to growth, or glamour, stocks. Rationalists, the group believing in market efficiency, argue that because value stocks are fundamentally riskier than growth stocks, the value premium is compensation for bearing risk. Behavioralists, the group arguing that market asset prices don’t reflect all publicly …

How Do Crises Spread? Evidence From Accessible And Inaccessible Stock Indices, Brian H. Boyer, Tomomi Kumagai, Kathy Yuan

Faculty Publications

We provide empirical evidence that stock market crises are spread globally through asset holdings of international investors. By separating emerging market stocks into two categories, namely, those that are eligible for purchase by foreigners (accessible) and those that are not (inaccessible), we estimate and compare the degree to which accessible and inaccessible stock index returns co-move with crisis country index returns. Our results show greater co-movement during high volatility periods, especially for accessible stock index returns, suggesting that crises spread through the asset holdings of international investors rather than through changes in fundamentals.

Horizontal Inequity In The Property Taxation Of Apartment, Industrial , Office, And Retail Properties, Gary C. Cornia, Barrett A. Slade

Faculty Publications

Researchers have carefully examined assessment unifor- mity in ad valorem taxation for single-family residential properties and they have frequently reported nonuniform outcomes in the appraisal of these properties. This study analyzes the uniformity of assessed valuations across apartment, industrial, office, and retail properties in Maricopa County (Metropolitan Phoenix), Arizona. Specifically, we investigate horizontal equity, which results when the assessment ratio (assessed value/sales price) is uniform across properties with similar market values. We examine horizontal equity over a five-and-one-half-year period (January 1998-June 2003). After applying both parametric and nonparametric tests, we find statistically significant evidence of horizontal inequity. We find that …

Evidence On What Cfos Think About The Ipo Process: Practice, Theory, And Managerial Implications, James C. Brau, Stanley E. Fawcett

Faculty Publications

Many privately held companies aspire to go public through an initial public offering. But the IPO process is time-consuming, expensive, and fraught with uncertainty. With the aim of shedding light on the process and reducing at least some of the uncertainty, the authors asked several hundred CFOs to share their experiences and perceptions with regard to six specific aspects of the IPO process: (1) motives for going public; (2) the timing of IPOs; (3) criteria for choosing an underwriter; (4) cause of IPO underpricing; (5) IPO signaling; and (6) reasons to stay private.

Why Have Debt Ratios Increased For Firms In Emerging Markets?, Todd Mitton

Faculty Publications

I study trends in capital structure between 1980 and 2004 in a sample of over 11,000 firms from 34 emerging markets. The average firm's book-value debt ratio rose by 10 percentage points over this quarter century; market-value debt ratios rose by 15 percentage points. I study how this rise in leverage was influenced by the firm-level demand for and the country-level supply of debt financing. The central finding is that the increase in debt ratios can largely be attributed to changes in the characteristics of emerging market firms over this period. For the average firm, the most prominent determinants of …

Financial Decision-Making By University Of Northern Iowa Business Students, Steffany Mae Zabokrtsky

Honors Program Theses

We continually need to make decisions, but it is clear that, in so doing, we do not act in accordance with strict rules of rationality. For example, the effect of framing (i.e. the choice of particular words to present a given set of facts) can influence our choices, which raises some serious questions about our real freedom of choice. An increasing body of literature on framing supports a tendency for people to take more risks when seeking to avoid losses as opposed to securing gains. This is explained by framing and the value function within Tversky and Kahneman's (1981) prospect …

Identity Theft: Who's In Your Wallet? A Look At Urban Legends And Consumers' Greatest Risks, Amber Sue Beenken

Honors Program Theses

Americans in the 21st century are obsessed with their physical health but may not be concerned enough with their financial health. One of the greatest threats to financial health today is identity theft. While identity theft is not a new phenomenon, it is becoming a greater risk every day. The alarming rate at which identity theft is increasing necessitates a closer look. Understanding consumers' greatest risks is the first step to knowing what to do when identity theft occurs, because its effects, such as loss of money, loss of time, loss of reputation, and loss of self-confidence, can be severe. …

Saving For Retirement On The Path Of Least Resistance, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, Andrew Metrick

Faculty Publications

We assess the impact on savings behavior of several different 401(k) plan features, including automatic enrollment, automatic cash distributions, employer matching provisions, eligibility requirements, investment options, and financial education. We also present new survey evidence on individual savings adequacy. Many of our conclusions are based on an analysis of micro-level administrative data on the 401(k) savings behavior of employees in several large corporations that implemented changes in their 401(k) plan design. Our analysis identifies a key behavioral principle that should partially guide the design of 401(k) plans: employees often follow “the path of least resistance.” For better or for worse, …

Conceptualization Of Trust, Commitment, And Understanding The Relationships Between Trust, Commitment, And Willingness To Try Internet Banking Services, Siew Tong Fock, Hian Chye Koh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines trust and commitment and their antecedents and consequences within the context of Internet banking, based on data collected from a survey of 500 Singapore undergraduates. After the establishment of a conceptual model that links trust and commitment to the willingness to try Internet banking, the empirical findings show that higher levels of trust and commitment are significantly associated with a greater willingness to try Internet banking. The paper also investigates security, ethics, privacy, openness, the speed of response, quality of information, regulatory control, technology advancement, and reputation as determinants of trust. Of these, security, regulatory control, technology …

Conflicts Of Interest And Stock Recommendations: The Effects Of The Global Settlement And Related Regulations, Rong Wang, Ohad Kadan, Leonardo Madureira, Tzachi Zach

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Prior research has shown that sell-side analysts in general, and especially those facing conflicts of interest driven by investment bank relationships, issue overly optimistic recommendations. This paper studies the effect of regulations on sell-side analysts’ research. These regulations — Rule NASD 2711, Rule NYSE 472, and the “Global Analyst Research Settlement” — attempted to mitigate the interdependence between the research and the investment bank departments of US brokerage houses. The results suggest that the regulations have partially achieved their goal of curbing the conflicts of interest’s influence over analysts’ stock recommendations. After the adoption of the new regulations, the likelihood …

Capital Structure Dynamics And Stock Returns, Jie Cai, Zhe Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Many finance theories predict that the capital structure affects firm value, which implies that the changes in leverage have an impact on stock returns. Most of the existing literature however has been focusing on the determinants of the capital structure. Using a sample of U.S. public firms during 1975-2002, we document a significantly negative effect of leverage changes on next-quarter stock returns. This effect remains significant after controlling for other firm characteristics such as ROE, book-to-market, firm size, and past returns. We propose and test several hypotheses to explain the observed effect. We find that the negative effect is stronger …

The Impact Of Financial Market And Resale Market On Firm Strategies, Zhiling Guo, Andrew B. Whinston

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The ever-increasing use of information technology (IT) in business transactions greatly expands firms? exposure to different electronic markets. This paper provides a framework to understand how firms can leverage different strategies across external financial markets and an internal resale market to improve overall profitability. We develop a model in which a group of risk-averse retailers sell a homogeneous product to their respective uncertain consumer markets. We study a scenario where an internal resale market can be constructed among the retailers and outside financial markets can be used to improve their ability to manage uncertainty. We identify strategies for retailers operating …

Constructing Commercial Indices: A Semiparametric Adaptive Estimator Approach, Douglas J. Hodgson, Barrett A. Slade, Keith Vorkink

Faculty Publications

Constant-quality commercial indices generated by ordinary least squares may suffer an efficiency loss due to leptokurtosis caused by outliers in transactions data. When the subsequent nonnormality occurs, substantial improvement in index precision is obtained by estimating the hedonic model using a semiparametric adaptive estimator technique. When this method was applied to 1,846 office transactions that occurred in the Phoenix metropolitan area from January 1997 through June 2004, a substantial standard error reduction of approximately 9% was realized relative to ordinary least squares estimates. The difference in average returns between the semiparametric method and ordinary least squares was about 0.25% in …

Initial Public Offerings: Cfo Perceptions, James C. Brau, Patricia A. Ryan, Irv Degraw

Faculty Publications

We examine four issues pertaining to initial public offerings (IPOs) using a survey of 438 chief financial officers (CFOs). First, why do firms go public? Second, is CFO sentiment stationary across bear and bull markets? Third, what concerns CFOs about going public? Fourth, do CFO perceptions correlate with returns? Results support funding for growth and liquidity as the primary reasons for IPOs. CFO sentiment is generally stationary in pre- and post-bubble years. Managers are concerned with the direct costs of going public, such as underwriting fees, as well as indirect costs.We find a negative relation between a focus on immediate …

Why Do Reits Repurchase Stock? Extricating The Effect Of Managerial Signaling In Open Market Share Repurchase Announcements, James C. Brau, Andrew Holmes

Faculty Publications

This paper explores the effect of stock repurchase announcements on equity returns for publicly traded real estate investment trusts (REITs). In addition to providing analysis of the corporate decision to repurchase shares, the study of share repurchases in the context of REITs provides a novel opportunity to disentangle the impact of competing theories for the abnormal returns observed around repurchase announcements. Prior literature advances six hypotheses to explain the stock price reaction associated with repurchases. Given that the theories all predict the same stock price reaction, existing studies are unable to disentangle the competing hypotheses. The intent of this research …