Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

The Archway Investment Fund Semi Annual Report, May 2007, Bryant University, Archway Investment Fund

Archway Investment Fund

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of The Repeal Of The Stock-For-Debt Exception On Corporate Bankruptcy Restructurings, William D. Terando, Wayne H. Shaw

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

This paper investigates the effect repeal of the stock-for-debt exception on corporate bankruptcy restructurings. This exception permitted corporations to exclude cancellation of indebtedness income from gross income provided they exchanged their own common equity for debt while in Chapter 11. Consistent with claims made by Easton (1994), it is found that the change in tax law imposed significant explicit tax costs on bankruptcy filers. Despite these costs, it is found that many of these firms altered their debt restructure method to preserve net operating losses and reduce their cost of equity. Almost half of the sample firms issued significant levels …

The Importance Of An Internship And What Makes Quicken Loans An Extraordinary Place To Intern, Frank C. Salinger

Honors Theses

Records the author's experiences interning for Quicken Loans as a student studying Business at Western Michigan University, and what benefits were found from the internship process.

Corporate Governance Ratings In Emerging Markets: Implications For Market Valuation, Internal Firm-Performance, Dividend Payouts And Policy, Edward Baker, Ben Godridge, Aron Gottesman, Matthew Morey

CRIF Seminar series

This paper utilizes a new data set from AllianceBernstein that, unlike other corporate governance data, has country-level and monthly-updated firm-level governance ratings for 22 emerging markets countries for almost a five year period. With these data we examine the relationship of firm-level and country-level corporate governance on firm valuation, dividend payout, internal firm performance and other issues. We find a number of interesting results that have implications for corporations, investors and policymakers. First, we find there is a positive and significant relation between firm-level and country-level corporate governance ratings and market valuation. Second, we find this relation between governance and …

Searching For Balassa Samuelson In Post-War Data, Lein Lein Chen, Seungmook Choi, John Devereux

CRIF Working Paper series

The Balassa Samuelson effect is a central result in trade theory. It is also fundamental to our understanding of what occurs during economic growth. As it turns out, the positive relationship between real income and the price level predicted by Balassa Samuelson occurs only after 1970. Why does Balassa Samuelson hold for recent years but not earlier? We provide an empirical explanation for this puzzle. Our point of departure is the observation that measurement error in comparative GDP data biases standard tests against finding a Balassa Samuelson effect. Allowing for measurement error, we find that Balassa Samuelson is present in …

Contract Delays: The Impact Of Department Of Defense (Dod) Contractors' Wealth, Jacqueline M. Leskowich

Theses and Dissertations

The monetary incentives used to motivate DoD contractors’ schedule performance on Acquisition Category One programs afford them the opportunity as a whole to earn billions of dollars in addition to their contract award. These incentives are paid 85-90% of the time regardless of schedule performance. While these contractors are paid to avoid delays, there is an indication the delay increases the contractor’s stock value. This research tested the theory that contract delays significantly impact the company’s stock returns. The results found both positive and negative reactions to a firm’s value. Delays caused by budget cuts tend to have a negative …

Do Hedge Funds Deliver Alpha? A Bayesian And Bootstrap Analysis, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection BNP Paribas Hedge Fund Centre

Using a robust bootstrap procedure, we find that top hedge fund performance cannot be explained by luck, and that hedge fund performance persists at annual horizons. Moreover, we show that Bayesian measures, which help overcome the short-sample problem inherent in hedge fund returns, lead to superior performance predictability. Relative to sorting on OLS alphas, sorting on Bayesian alphas yields a 5.5 percent per year increase in the alpha of the spread between the top and bottom hedge fund deciles. Our results are robust, and relevant to investors, as they are neither confined to small funds, nor driven by incubation bias, …

A Comparison Between Tests For Changes In The Adjustment Coefficients In Cointegrated Systems, Marco R. Barassi, Guglielmo Maria Caporale, Stephen G. Hall

CRIF Seminar series

In this paper we examine several approaches to detecting changes in the adjustment coefficients in cointegrated VARs. We adopt recursive and rolling techniques as mis-specification tests for the detection of non-constancy and the estimation of the breakpoints. We find that inspection of the recursive eigenvalues is not useful to detect a break in the adjustment coefficients, whilst recursive estimation of the coefficients can only indicate non-constancy, but not the exact breakpoint. Rolling estimation is found to perform better in detecting non-constancy in the parameters and their true value after the breakpoint. However, it only detects a region where the break …

Front Matter, Esr Review

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Partner Profiles, Esr Review

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Empowering The Next Billion, John E. Davies

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

When i travel to India, China, and other growing nations, I am visibly struck by the living conditions I hear about, statistically, there is an estimated 4 billion people who live in poverty around the world. It's visible. It's tangible. But I am also hit, with equal impact, by the relentless and imaginative entrepreneurship I witness in these very same places by people who, from my frame of reference, have scarce resources.

Improving Microfinance Through Telecommunications, Peter Bladin

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Editor's Introduction: Technology And Development, Paul C. Godfrey

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Reason: Christianity To Capitalism, Assunta M. Forgione

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Pebble In A Pond, Stephen R. Barley

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

Paul C. Godfrey, associate academic director of BYU’s Economic Self-Reliance Center, sat down with Stephen R. Barley, the Charles M. Pigott Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University, to discuss problems and needs associated with implementing technology in developing countries. Barley is co-director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Organization at Stanford’s School of Engineering, and the co-director of the Stanford/General Motors Collaborative Research Laboratory. He has written extensively on the impact of new technologies on work, the organization of technical work, and organizational culture. Barley was a member of the Board of Senior Scholars of the …

Double Bottom Line Growth, Patrick Crompton

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

End Matter, Esr Review

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

China Forges Ahead On Financial Reform – At Its Own Pace, With Its Own Rules, Knowledge@Smu

Knowledge@SMU

China’s fast-evolving financial industry, like the country itself, defies the type of easy, sound bite-friendly synopses that foreign investors might like. It’s often unclear exactly what factors are stoking China’s remarkable economic growth engine. Or, as Winston Wenyan Ma, an investment banker who most recently worked for J.P. Morgan in New York and is the author of Investing in China – New Opportunities in a Transforming Stock Market, puts it: “The Chinese financial industry is a very complex story.” Speaking at the recent Wharton China Business Forum in Philadelphia, Ma moderated a panel on financial reform – a key ingredient …

Vol. 09 No. 1 Esr Review, Esr Review

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Center News, Esr Review

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Pay And Performance: Among 100 Best U.S. Companies To Work For, Omair Mahmood Faisal

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

In the 21st century, world is becoming a global village and with increased competition businesses are always looking for regions with the lowest possible production costs. Appropriate compensation of U.S. employees working for major U.S. corporations is a hotly debated topic in political circles. This research focuses on the top 100 companies designated as “the best companies to work for” by Fortune Magazine for the year 2006. Performance of these companies, as measured by their return on equity, return on assets, revenue growth and earnings growth along with their profit margin is used to determine the impact on them as …

The Change In Financial Analysts' Forecast Attributes For Value And Growth Stocks, Pieter De Jong

Finance and Real Estate Dissertations - Archive

This research will concentrate on the changes in earnings forecasts, forecast accuracy and forecast dispersion for growth and value stocks after Reg FD. Each topic is presented in a separate essay. The first essay tests if growth and value stock returns respond more to forecasted earnings changes than they do to changes in earnings and whether these stock returns respond in a different fashion before and after Reg FD. This phenomenon is stronger for growth stock portfolio strategies than it is for value stock portfolios. After Reg FD, the overall impact of earnings expectations on stock returns is smaller, especially …

E-Business And Economic Self-Reliance, Stephen W. Liddle

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

I am often asked to speak on the subject of e-business—its ramifications for modern organizations and its impact on our students who will soon be entering the workforce. E-business is the use of information technology and electronic communication networks to exchange business information and conduct transactions in electronic, paperless form. From online retail operations to Web-enabled self-service technical support, organizations around the world are transforming in significant and far-reaching ways.

The Effect Of Financial Hedging On The Incentives For Corporate Diversification: The Role Of Stakeholder Firm-Specific Investments, Sonya Seongyeon Lim, Heli Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Financial hedging and corporate diversification are often considered substitutive means of risk management, implying that rapid development of financial hedging markets will yield less need for firms to manage risk through costly diversification. Building on a stakeholder-based view of risk management, we show that financial hedging and corporate diversification are more often complementary than substitutive. Financial hedging reduces a firm’s systematic risk, encouraging firm-specific investment by stakeholders. Larger firmspecific investment loads excessive idiosyncratic risk on the stakeholders, increasing the benefits of reducing idiosyncratic risk through diversification. Therefore, financial hedging can increase a firm’s incentives to manage risk through diversification.

Exploring Revenue Management In Spas: Yield Management Concepts In The Spa Industry Today, Elaine M. Balkoulis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The primary goal of this paper is to further explore the applications of yield management in the spa industry and identify the techniques that are currently used by spa operators. The paper will also evaluate the most popular spa software systems utilized. Furthermore, the paper will investigate the existence of yield management features in the current spa software systems. In addition an effort will be carried out to examine the spa patrons’ perception on yield management strategies in the spa environment.

Do Hedge Funds Deliver Alpha? A Bayesian And Bootstrap Analysis, Robert Kosowski, Narayan Y. Naik, Melvyn Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using a robust bootstrap procedure, we find that top hedge fund performance cannot be explained by luck, and that hedge fund performance persists at annual horizons. Moreover, we show that Bayesian measures, which help overcome the short-sample problem inherent in hedge fund returns, lead to superior performance predictability. Relative to sorting on OLS alphas, sorting on Bayesian alphas yields a 5.5 percent per year increase in the alpha of the spread between the top and bottom hedge fund deciles. Our results are robust, and relevant to investors, as they are neither confined to small funds, nor driven by incubation bias, …

Optimal Liquidation Strategies And Their Implications, Christopher Ting, Mitch Warachka, Yonggan Zhao

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper studies optimal liquidation when the selling price depends on the rate of liquidation, transaction time, volume, and the asset's intrinsic value. A generic closed-form solution for maximizing the discounted liquidation proceeds is derived. To obtain financial insights, three parametric specifications that proxy for increasingly realistic market conditions are examined. In our framework, maximizing liquidation proceeds and minimizing liquidity costs are equivalent. The optimal strategies imply more rapid liquidations in less liquid markets. We also show that volatility is stochastic when market liquidity is unpredictable.

Banking The Unbanked, Janine Firpo

Journal of Microfinance / ESR Review

No abstract provided.

Costly Arbitrage And The Lead-Lag Structure Between Value And Glamour Stocks, Meng Li

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Motivated by the findings of Lo and Mackinlay (1990) that size premium can be partially attributed to the lead-lag relation between the returns of large stocks and those of small stocks, in this thesis we hypothesize that a possible lead-lag structure between value and glamour returns can partially explain the value premium anomaly.

The thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter I documents a pronounced lead-lag structure between value and glamour stocks: the glamour stocks lead value stocks in terms of both mean returns and residual volatilities, suggesting that value stocks delay in price adjustment to new information. To further explore …

Forecasting The Kc-135 Cost Per Flying Hour: A Panel Data Analysis, Michael T. Bryant

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis developed models to forecast the KC-135R monthly Consumables (CONS) and Depot Level Reparable (DLR) Cost per Flying Hour (CPFH) for each U.S. Air Force service component. Using data for each operating location from FY1998 to FY2004, the models were constructed using panel data analysis, a form of regression that adds a cross-sectional and time-series dimension. In addition to including factors previously identified as prime contributors to CPFH, the models added new elements that may influence maintenance costs and be of interest to policymakers. These elements included mission capable rates, airframe operating hours, and climatology factors. An interaction variable …