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WKU Administration Documents

Email to faculty & staff regarding salary increases to be given in 2024.

Fin4260 Short-Term Financial Management, Yannick J. Roger Post

KSU Distinguished Course Repository

This short-term financial management course is an elective for upper level, undergraduate finance majors. It focuses on working capital and treasury management topics that are vital for anyone interested in a career in corporate finance.

Short-term financial management refers to the utilization of the firm’s current assets and liabilities in order to maximize shareholder wealth and reduce financial risk. This course begins by reviewing the time value of money concepts, and the basics of financial statement analysis. The focus then shifts to short-term operating assets and short-term operating liabilities, and a discussion of the cash conversion cycle and the importance …

Behavioral Biases, Financial Literacy, And Investment Decision: A Case Of Individual Investors In Pakistan, Arslan Saleem, Muhammad Usman, Zahid Bashir

Business Review

This research dives into the interesting world of investment choices and analyses the influence that behavioural biases and financial literacy play in the process. The study uncovers the direct impact of behavioural biases such as anchoring, optimism bias, and loss aversion on investment decisions by using primary data from individual investors in the Lahore region. These individuals participated in the study. According to the findings of the study, having a solid understanding of finance can help mitigate the effects of cognitive biases and lessen the toll they take on investment choices. The study underscores the necessity for future research on …

Linking Green Innovation, Corporate Environmental Performance With Financing Constraints: A Sustainable Transition Towards Environmental Protection, Syeda Fizza Abbas, Iqra Tariq, Fareeha Waseem

Business Review

Purpose: Accessing different sources of finance becomes difficult when companies fail to take action towards environmental protection. Motivated by the theoretical propositions of stakeholder theory, this research investigates the impact of green innovation (GI) and corporate environmental performance (CEP) on financing constraints (FC) in the context of the most polluting industries of an emerging economy.

Methodology: The sample is based on 33 companies from the cement, chemical and fertilizer sectors of Pakistan for the period of 2017 to 2020. For data analysis, random effects and VCE Robust regressions models have been employed to explore the link between GI, CEP and …

Estimating And Applying Autoregression Models Via Their Eigensystem Representation, Leo Krippner

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

This article introduces the eigensystem autoregression (EAR) framework, which allows an AR model to be specified, estimated, and applied directly in terms of its eigenvalues and eigenvectors. An EAR estimation can therefore impose various constraints on AR dynamics that would not be possible within standard linear estimation. Examples are restricting eigenvalue magnitudes to control the rate of mean reversion, additionally imposing that eigenvalues be real and positive to avoid pronounced oscillatory behavior, and eliminating the possibility of explosive episodes in a time-varying AR. The EAR framework also produces closed-form AR forecasts and associated variances, and forecasts and data may be …

The Ursinus College Investment Management Company Newsletter, Fall 2023, Kaela Frenchman, Olivia Defusco, Jack Thompson

Investment Management Company Newsletter

Inside this issue:

At a Glance

Letter from Kaela Frenchman '24 and Olivia DeFusco '24

Letter from Jack Thompson '24

Honoring Dr. Scott Deacle and Investment Team Updates

UCIMCO Investment Performance and Analysis

Endowment Outlook

Stock Selection Picks

Women's Fund Picks

Our Teams

Thank You!

How to Contribute

Investment Policy Statement UCIMCO Endowment

Investment Policy Statement UCIMCO Stock Selection

Investment Policy Statement UCIMCO Women's Fund

Does An Accounting Internship Impact Cpa Exam Performance?, Xiaochuan Zheng, A. Can Inci

Accounting Department Faculty Journal Articles

We examined whether an accounting internship influences CPA exam performance. Using 2005–2013 candidate data, we found that an internship is significantly related to CPA exam performance in the Auditing (AUD) section. We speculate that the internship’s observed positive effect for the AUD section and the lack of effect for the other three sections is because the audit section more closely reflects knowledge/skills acquired by interns than the other three exam sections. These results have implications for academics and candidates seeking to improve CPA exam performance. Our study also provides information for those considering incorporating an accounting internship into the curriculum.

Ucimco Endowment Semi-Annual Presentation, Fall 2023, Will Alain, Billy Cardino, Tyler Causa, Patrick Collins, Bill Cook, Cole Grubbs, Kieran Hollander, Dylan Hollick, Jared Minnichbach, Alexandra Nenish, Jordan Pick, Kipp Ransome, Kirk Ransome, Kyle Rosenfeld, Tyler Sargent, Michael Scheller, Max Shilstone, Mckade Trauger, Nick Troha

Business and Economics Presentations

The Ursinus College Investment Management Company (UCIMCO) consists of groups of student analysts who manage endowment-style and stock selection funds on behalf of the college endowment. This presentation, by the endowment team, examines performance and investment philosophy while discussing selections in the portfolio including: fixed income, U.S. and international equities, real estate and commodities.

Ursinus College Women's Investment Fund, Fall 2023, Sarah Dilello, Emily Carkhuff, Katie Ciuffreda, Laura Bradley, Samantha Mallen, Carly Troilo, Camila Knipe, Isabella Scarpetti, Mayleigh Rickey, Carlie Shiller

Business and Economics Presentations

The Ursinus College Investment Management Company (UCIMCO) consists of groups of student analysts who manage endowment-style and stock selection funds on behalf of the college endowment. In 2020, a group of women students began to manage their own fund. This presentation reviews activities of the Fall 2023 semester and analyzes the stock performance of various companies including: Salesforce, InterDigital Inc., SPX Technologies, NextEra Energy and RenaissanceRe Holdings.

The Role Of Intercultural Communication In Recruiting And Retaining Student-Athletes: A Phenomenological Study On Understanding The Sociocultural Aspects Of Building Non-Revenue Teams In Intercollegiate Sport, Eva Rouser

PhD in Organizational Leadership

Recruiting and retaining student-athletes at NCAA Division I and II member institutions is difficult. However, the coaches of non-revenue-producing sport have developed communication measures to assist in successfully fielding teams of culturally unique individuals that build an ingroup culture to compete despite limiting factors. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine the lived experience of non-revenue-producing sporting coaches’ intercultural communication methodical variations in interactions with student-athletes as each coach adapts exchanges to serve as relationship-building elements to balance cultural norms with the acceptance of unfamiliar cultural behaviors. Relevant themes emerged from the data gathered during participant interviews, …

Strategic Audit Of Dunkin Brands, Maggie Madej

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Dunkin Brands is the parent company that operates franchises, and one of its most well-known subsidiaries is Dunkin' Donuts. This establishment, rooted in the United States but with a global presence, is a significant player in the coffee and donut shop industry. This paper provides a background on Dunkin Brands and analyzes their internal and external environment, firm strategy, and corporate governance. The analysis uses theories and principles learned in management, such as Porter’s Five Forces and PESTEL analysis. Additionally, strategic recommendations were made for Dunkin Brands' next steps to continue dominating the coffee and donut shop industry.

Consumers’ Reaction To Corporate Esg Performance: Evidence From Store Visits, Frank Weikai Li, Frank Weikai Li, Roni Michaely

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using micro-level data on consumer shopping behavior, this paper investigates end-consumers’ attitudes toward firms’ ESG behavior, and as importantly, the ability of consumers to affect firms’ policy concerning sustainability issues. We find that consumers care about firms’ approach toward ESG, and consumers’ behavior can impact firms’ attitudes. Using ESG incidents as a proxy, we find that the reduction in store visits is more pronounced for ESG-conscious consumers, such as those living in democratic counties, and counties with a higher fraction of educated and younger residents. Online shopping interest data yields similar results. Using abnormally hot temperature as a shock to …

Editorial: Digital Finance And Sustainability: Impacts, Challenges, And Policy Priorities, John Beirne, David G. Fernandez

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Digitalization helps to transform economies through supporting inclusive growth and enhancing economy-wide productivity, with the important role of digital finance being a key component of this [1]. This can also underpin progress on reaching targets set for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More recently, initiatives on sustainable digital finance and green fintech have been at the core of a new strand of research on the nexus between digital finance and environmental sustainability (e.g., [2]). In addition, the promotion of a sound and efficient digital payment system, both nationally and globally, is an important mechanism for reducing inequality (e.g., [3]. …

Digital Wealth Management And Consumption: Micro Evidence From Individual Investments, Qian Gong, Mingyuan Ban, Yunjun Yu, Luying Wang, Yan Yuan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

With the rapid advancement of digital finance in China, accessing wealth management services through digital platforms has become considerably convenient. However, the potential impact of digital platform investments on residents' consumption remains a relatively unexplored question. This study addresses this gap by leveraging a unique dataset obtained from one of China's largest fintech companies, encompassing individual-level data on consumption and investment. Our findings indicate that engaging in digital platform investments can indeed stimulate residents' consumption. Importantly, participation in digital platform investment has an inclusive effect, with a more pronounced marginal impact on consumption among low-income residents and in-dividuals residing in …

Does The Consolidated Feed Matter?, Shihao Yu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this paper we examine the role of the consolidated feeds in the current U.S. equities market by studying exogenous events which affect their speed and availability respectively. We find that faster consolidated feeds have an adverse, albeit mild, impact on market liquidity, possibly as a result of more non-high-frequency algorithmic trading activities from informed institutional traders. Moreover, when the consolidated feeds become corrupted or unavailable due to technical glitches, market liquidity significantly worsens. Our findings suggest that the consolidated feeds remain a crucial component of today’s market data infrastructure.

Does The Federal Reserve Obtain Competitive And Appropriate Prices In Monetary Policy Implementation?, Yu An, Zhaogang Song

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Many of the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed’s) monetary policy operations involve trading with primary dealers. We find that, for agency MBS, dealers charge 2.5 cents (per $100 face value) higher selling to the Fed than to non-Fed customers. Controlling for the same dealer, same security, and same trading time, this discriminatory pricing likely arises from dealers’ market power rather than inventory costs. Further, matching trade size reduces the price differential by more than half, implying that dealers’ market power greatly relates to the Fed’s purchases in large amounts, whereas the Fed’s limited breadth of counterparty choice also plays some role.

Toolkit For The Evaluation Of Crypto Tax Risks (Outline), Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This Toolkit seeks to provide a practical, structured framework for the identification and assessment of crypto tax risks that can be used by tax administrations. It has three main parts. Firstly, an introduction to the Toolkit and how it should be used. Secondly, a series of questionnaires to complete. Thirdly, a commentary to provide additional context and details on each part of the Toolkit and its application. As tax administrations go through the questionnaires, they can rely on the Commentary to complement their existing knowledge and expertise to accurately identify the crypto tax risks facing their domestic tax systems.

The Philippine Economy During The Japanese Occupation, Jasper Lem

Asian Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

The economy of the Philippines was derailed by the Japanese occupation during World War II. As an American colony before World War II, the Philippines had close amicable ties with the United States highlighted by promises of independence on July 4th, 1946. The Philippines also maintained a beneficial economic relationship with the States at this time through extensive foreign trade. However, because of the Japanese invasion, the Philippine economy was robbed of this profitable foreign trade and the promise of independence, severely crippling the island nation and her morale. The first policies implemented by Japan were designed to control the …

Required Minimum Distribution (Rmd) Spreadsheet Calculators Based On The Secure Act Of 2022, Tom Arnold, John H. Earl, Jr., Cassandra D. Marshall

Finance Faculty Publications

Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) Spreadsheet Calculators

Based on the SECURE Act of 2022

The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act (SECURE Act) of 2022 made a second round of changes (relative to the SECURE Act of 2019) to the required minimum distribution (RMD) schedule for individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and defined contribution retirement plans. Excel spreadsheet calculators are developed to calculate the new annual RMD cash flows throughout retirement for those who are retired and for those who are planning to retire. The spreadsheet calculators also allow savings to accrue with interest if the RMD is in excess …

Bank Lending Channel Effectiveness –Potential Lessons For Monetary Policy, Filip Świtała, Iwona Kowalska, Karolina Malajkat

Journal of Banking and Financial Economics

The article supplements the research on the effectiveness of monetary policy transmission – especially through the bank lending channel. The current study focuses on assessing the transmission of monetary impulses through commercial and cooperative banks as well as through individual loan portfolios, while distinguishing between the fact that they were granted by commercial and cooperative banks. How a change in the central bank’s interest rates may determine a change in the volume of loans in the economy remains the core question of the research.

Millennials’ Willingness To Payfor Socially Responsible Investmentand Its Institutional And Individual Antecedents – Evidence From Italy, Poland, And Ukraine, Anna Doś, Monika Foltyn-Zarychta, Matteo Pedrini, Iryna Shkura

Journal of Banking and Financial Economics

The readiness to sacrifice profit while making socially responsible investments among millennials, as future investors and managers, was examined. Specifically, a multi-level perspective on willingness to pay for socially responsible investment was assumed to understand how nationality, personal values and investment knowledge affect millennials’ readiness to sacrifice profit to achieve sustainability goals. Using survey data of 521 business students from Italy, Poland and Ukraine, it is showed that a considerable share of millennials prefer social and environmental performance of investment over financial return and that their nationality is the most powerful factor in explaining willingness to pay for socially responsible …

Ceo Political Ideology And Voluntary Forward-Looking Disclosure, Ahmed Elnahas, Lei Gao, Md Noman Hossain, Jeong-Bon Kim

Finance Faculty Publications

This study investigates whether the management earnings forecasts of Republican and Democratic CEOs differ due to systematic differences in their information disclosure preferences. We find that Republican CEOs 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 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 and are stronger for firms with higher levels of institutional ownership and litigation risk.

For Love Or Money: Investor Motivations In Equity-Based Crowdfunding, Jason C. Cherubini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Crowdfunding is an increasingly popular method for entrepreneurial ventures to raise financing from a large number of small supporters (the “crowd”) instead of raising it through a small number of larger supporters. Crowdfunding is normally conducted through online platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo, where the entrepreneurial venture runs a campaign directly seeking support from individual funders. Most of the research into crowdfunding to date has been focused on what elements of the crowdfunding campaign lead to eventual successful funding, especially in the rewards-based crowdfunding space. The comparatively new equity-based crowdfunding has not been as heavily researched and is technically …

Competition Law Reform And Firm Performance: Evidence From Developing Countries, Incheol Kim, Suin Lee, Bina Sharma

Finance Faculty Publications

We examine the effects of competition laws on firm performance in East Asian countries that have enacted antitrust legislation in the last three decades. Exploiting the staggered changes of these laws as quasi-exogenous shocks, we find that strengthened competition laws improve firm performance. Treated firms increase R&D investments and efficiency in inventory and asset management, while free cash flow decreases after reforms. Also, the effect of competition laws on firm performance is stronger with weaker corporate governance. Our findings indicate that government intervention promoting competitive market environments could benefit corporate owners in emerging markets where corporate governance is often substandard.

An In-Depth Analysis Of The Impact Of Cyberattacks On The Profitability Of Commercial Banks In The United States, Asligul Erkan-Barlow, Thanh Ngo, Rajni Goel, Denise W. Streeter

Journal of Global Business Insights

This study examined the effects of cyberattacks on the profitability of U.S. public and private commercial banks using a sample of 120 data breaches across various institutions. The results showed that cyberattacks negatively influence bank profitability, with effects more robust in the 12 quarters following a breach, especially from non-hack breaches. Large and private banks suffer more than small and public banks, with breaches resulting in decreased deposits and loans and increased liquidity. These changes are confirmed as independent channels reducing bank profitability. The results were robust after controlling for factors like multicollinearity, non-stationarity, cross-sectional dependence, and heteroskedasticity.

Institutional Investors And Corporate Environmental And Financial Performance, Steve M. Miller, Bin Qiu, Bin Wang, Tina Yang

Finance Faculty Research and Publications

We propose a conceptual framework to illustrate that when three conditions hold, institutional investors moderate a positive relation between corporate financial performance and corporate environmental performance. We explore heterogeneities across institution types to demonstrate the importance of each condition. The moderating effect works through the channels of expert consulting and effective monitoring. Our results have important policy and practical implications given the global trend of ownership concentration in institutional investors and the projection that by 2025, one out of three dollars under professional management will be invested in corporate social responsibility assets.

Unusual Changes In The U.S. Treasury Security Market During The Fourth Round Of Quantitative Easing, Kyle D. Allen, Scott E. Hein

Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Covid-19 Pandemic and policy response rattled the US Treasury markets. Conventional US Treasuries, inflation adjusted US Treasuries, and the relationship between the two developed in ways such that ignoring changes in real interest rates yielded distorted inflation expectations estimates. Since the beginning of the pandemic, monetary policy kept nominal rates low and close to zero, but positive. Real rates, on the other hand, became increasingly negative. The relationship between the two market rates became negatively correlated, and distorted because of the fourth round of quantitative easing, along with the Fed preventing nominal yields from turning negative. Federal Reserve actions …

Money Market Reforms: The Effect On The Commercial Paper Market, Kyle Allen, Pritam Saha, Matthew Whitledge, Drew Winters

Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study examines the effects of the 2016 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reforms of Money Market Funds (MMFs) on the commercial paper market. By exploiting the differential time effect, we document a rise in the commercial paper (CP) rates. The rise in CP rates is more pronounced when the shadow floating NAV period starts and is similar across different types of commercial paper. Our cross-sectional analysis finds support for relationship-based lending in both commercial paper holdings and rates. We find that big issuers experienced a decrease and small issuers observed an increase in commercial paper outstanding from MMFs in …

The Information In Asset Fire Sales, Sheng Huang, Matthew C. Ringgenberg, Zhe Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Asset prices remain depressed for years following mutual fund fire sales, but little is known about the causes of these price drops. We show that asymmetric information generates price pressure during fire sales. We separate trades into expected trades, which assume fund managers scale down their portfolio, and discretionary trades. We find that discretionary trades contain fundamental information, whereas expected trades do not. Moreover, other traders cannot distinguish between discretionary and expected trades. Our findings help explain the magnitude and persistence of fire sale discounts: fund managers choose which assets to sell, and information asymmetries make it difficult for arbitrageurs …

Structural Identification Of Pair Trades, Yi Liu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the structural identification of pair trades based on company fundamentals, stock price paths, and company’s capacity to transform fundamentals into value. The dissertation consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 lays the foundation for the study of pair identification. It designs the pair trading procedure and defines the trading performance measure. It also reviews and compares the performance of commonly used pair identification metrics in the literature, including normalized price squared distance, return correlation, and co-integration tests. Among the three metrics, the squared price distance represents the most effective metric and generates the best pair trading performance. The …