Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

How Large Are The Benefits Of Emerging Market Equities?, C. Mitchell Conover, Gerald R. Jensen, Robert R. Johnson

Finance Faculty Publications

We perform a comprehensive evaluation of the benefits of emerging market equities by extending previous research in four fundamental ways. The contribution of this study is that it 1) evaluates a more complete sample; 2) examines performance measures that account for asymmetric return distributions; 3) separates emerging markets by region; and 4) considers the influence that the market environment has on the benefits of emerging market investments. Our results suggest that previous research has understated the benefits associated with investing in emerging markets. We find that broad emerging market indices have relatively low downside risk, which results in Sortino ratios …

Performance Implications Of Stage-Wise Lead User Participation In Software Development Problem Solving, Jorge A. Colazo

School of Business Faculty Research

The problem-solving view of new product development sees the innovation process as a series of problem-solving loops broken down into three stages: problem detection, analysis and removal. We link this framework with lead user-driven innovation regarding software and show that effort by lead users (LUs) in each stage of the innovation problem solving process is, in varying degrees, associated with the source code’s quality, the productivity of the development process and the software’s popularity. We also test whether front loading the problem solving process is associated with development performance and we find that front loading is associated with increased code …

Developing A Framework For Sustainable Manufacturing Strategies Selection, Lanndon A. Ocampo, Eppie Estanislao–Clark

DLSU Business & Economics Review

Manufacturing organizations adopt sustainability manufacturing in their attempt to address the triple-bottomline (TBL): environmental stewardship, economic growth, and social well-being. This study was conducted in order to characterize the programs adopted by a manufacturing firm with respect to the TBL and in the end, recommend a framework that could be utilized by decision-makers in the firm as they start to pursue a more sustainable strategy. This paper utilized the case study of a prime multinational semiconductor firm that promotes sustainability among their corporate initiatives.The semiconductor industry was chosen because of its prominence in sustainability efforts worldwide. Weaknesses of the current …

Two Essays On Attracting Foreign Direct Investment: From Both A National And Firm Level Perspective, Ryan Lawrence Mason

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

Countless studies with a wide variety of financial and economic indicators have been conducted over the years within the context of international business research, all searching for hints or signals as to what makes the never ending process of globalization progress. Our research follows these efforts while focusing specifically on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Our first study sets out to empirically test if nations adopting the inflation targeting (IT) monetary policy are more successful in attracting inbound and outbound FDI cash flows than those nations utilizing alternative monetary policies. IT is a relatively new policy which was first put into …

On The Governance Of Innovation: Institutional Ownership Vs. Stock Price, Huong Thi Thu Le

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Firms can change their outstanding shares to manage their stock price levels. Those with lower stock prices tend to attract more speculative trading, which causes higher price volatility and may force their managers to excessively focus on short-term earnings at the expense of R&D and other long-term projects. Thus, I hypothesize that keeping high stock price levels allows firms to (i) limit speculative traders’ influences on stock prices and thus mitigate investor short-termism, and (ii) enhance R&D productivity. Indeed, I find that high-priced firms are less likely to cut R&D to reverse an earnings decline, less likely to fire their …

"Through The Looking Glass; Understanding Consumer Inaction In Retail Financial Services", Tara Rooney, Katrina Lawlor, Eddie Rohan

Reports

Understanding why consumers choose to remain in relationships which they find less than satisfactory is a key concern for relationship marketing theory. In this paper we explore the alternative choices available to consumers after exit has been considered and then declined. Applying a narrative methodology within a social constructionist framework, the paper presents a theory of Relationship Neutrality. We go through the looking glass, into to a world of relationship contradictions and irrationality to consider long term relationship engagement which is different from the one theory has grown accustomed to.

Essays On Dividend Equivalent Rights And Ceo Compensation, Zi Jia

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies a little-known executive compensation device called dividend equivalent rights (DERs). DERs entitle an executive to receive dividends, known as dividend equivalents (DEs), on unearned performance-based stocks and options. In the first essay we do empirical studies on the market reaction of news about DERs and the incentives that DERs can bring. We find that about 22% of S&P500 firms allow for these payments and about 10% actually make such payments. While investors react negatively to announcements of DE payments, DERs can be beneficial to shareholders by inducing a company to disgorge unproductive cash. If a firm allows …

Essays On Mortgage Securitizations, Hong Lee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies how the affiliation between different entities in securitization process make different market outcomes, and how this estimation of affiliation effects is susceptible to limitations in securitized residential mortgage data. Three essays constitute the dissertation. The first essay illustrates the limitations and potential bias in the loan-level trustee data. Substantial amounts of loan attributes and risk factors are missing. The patterns of data omissions dramatically vary across different risk factors, sponsors, and trustees, and over the time. Missing of one risk factor is in general positively correlated with missing of the other. Omissions of loan attributes are systematically …

Essays On Corporate Innovation, Lai Van Vo

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore the underlying mechanisms through which a firm innovates and invests in Research and Development (R&D). It consists of two essays. The initial essay investigates the effects of aggregate stock market liquidity on innovation at both the aggregate and firm levels for publicly traded firms in the U.S., and shows a significant and positive effect at both levels of aggregation. Next, the essay provides two underlying mechanisms through which aggregate stock liquidity enhances innovation. First, high stock market liquidity reduces the cost of raising external capital, making it easier for firms, especially for small firms and …

Ethics And Market Economic System: A General Review And A Survey, Reza G. Hamzaee

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

Recent global recession has motivated this predominantly historical and exploratory research of thoughts and perceptions. A continuous planning of governmental correction of any market failure, such as various types of externalities and information asymmetry, has been strongly recommended by the pioneers of free enterprise systems. Capitalism—in which private ownership of means of production, physical capital, human capital, financial capital, brand-name capital, social capital, land, and mineral deposits are all protected by law without implementation of a series of certain evolving ethical standards and principles—may not continue to be the same efficient system as implied to be by the cost-benefit balancing …

An Empirical Analysis Of The Relationship Between Capital Flows And The Real Exchange Rate In India, Shashank Goel

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

This paper analyzes the relationship between the net capital flows (NCFs) and other fundamentals and the real exchange rate (RER) in India consequent to the liberalization of the capital account in 1990s for the period 1996–1997 to 2012–2013 using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach to cointegration. Most studies in the literature emphasize the role of a number of real and monetary variables and domestic policies in determination of RER. But there is no consensus on what actually determines the RER. The estimation includes NCFs, government consumption expenditure, terms of trade, trade openness, Gross Domestic Product growth rate, change in foreign …

A Direct Test Of Agency Theories Of Debt, Yilin Huang, Taylor D. Nadauld

Faculty Publications

When a firm is facing default, equity holders have incentives to engage in asset substitution, underinvest, or directly transfer wealth. Few papers document investment distortions on account of debt-equity agency conflicts, only that the threat of distortions influence ex ante financing costs. A non-agency RMBS deal represents an entity that is highly leveraged where, ex ante, equity holders know they will face default. This provides an ideal laboratory for testing whether the threat of default creates any of the distortions predicted in theory. We estimate agency costs associated with direct wealth transfers to range between $.011 and $.025 per dollar.

Constructing Corporate Capability In Changing Contexts: The Innovation Journey Of Strategic Management Development At Bankwest, Moira Watson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis is about an unfolding management development process over time. Interconnections influencing corporate capability are explained and insight provided into the social construction of strategic organisational change. Studies of strategically-focused change don’t generally address the part management development plays in innovation and corporate capability construction. This research thus fills a persistent knowledge gap in the understanding of the way management development is provided within organisations and the value of the process.

This empirical study is in the process research tradition. A longitudinal, in-depth case study of BankWest, an Australian financial services company undergoing significant change between 1997 and 2009, …

Economies And Cultures Can’T Be Separated, Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Essays On Authorized Shares, Stock Splits, And Top-Up Options, Hilmi Songur

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation consists of two separate but broadly related essays investigating the role of authorized shares in corporate events. In the first essay, I examine the relation between management's power to issue new shares of stock and stock split abnormal announcement returns. I posit that the mechanical reduction in excess authorized shares (EAS) caused by a stock split, decreases management's power to issue stock. I argue that this results in lower agency costs and thereby increases shareholder's value. After controlling for other factors, and consistent with my hypothesis, I find that the pre-split ratio of unissued authorized shares to total …

An Exploratory, Correlational, Self-Rater Study On Authentic Leadership Values Of Adventist Local Conference Chief Financial Officers In The United States, Juan R. Prestol-Puesán

Dissertations

The Problem

Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) local conference treasurers, or Chief Financial Officers, are trusted by church members to manage the finances of the church and provide financial leadership, yet the denomination does not know how treasurers develop their values and leadership capacity as financial administrators. This study examined how treasurers compare with the leadership values of morality, integrity, and fairness prevalent today in positive forms of leadership theories. It explores SDA treasurer or financial officer self-assessment with the rating that their team members provide, allowing us to know the authenticity of their values as leaders.

Method

This is a census …

Essays On Earnings Quality: Evidence From Net Share Issue, Put Option Sales, And Hedging, Jagadish Dandu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

There are three essays in this research. The main objective of the research is to extend the literature in corporate finance by investigating the quality of earnings around corporate events like net share issues, put option sales by firms on their own stock, and hedging commodities by high input cost group of firms.

The first paper is "Does Earnings Quality predicts Net Share Issuance". This paper investigates whether quality of earnings predicts net share issuance by corporations. Pontiff and Woodgate (2008) show that annual share issuance (ISSUE) measure is a better predictor of future cross-sectional returns and we use this …

Essays In Corporate Finance, Shofiqur Rahman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This doctoral Dissertation examines the impact of firms' geographic location and labor market friction, both based on the states in which firms are headquartered, on corporate policies. The first essay examines the impact of the geographical location of the firm on the use of operating leases. The main idea of this essay is that, because obtaining information and monitoring is costly for potential lessors, especially when a lessee is relatively far away from financial centers, rural firms are less likely to use operating leases in comparison to their urban counterparts. Consistent with this hypothesis, I show that rural firms tend …

Firm Growth Around The World: Financial Constraints, Corruption, And Privatization, Sk. Md. Barkat Ullah

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation consists of three separate essays that are broadly related to firm-level financial constraints, corruption, and privatization and their relation to firm performance and growth across the globe. I employ World Bank Enterprise Survey data collected from 2006-2011 for over one hundred countries. In my first Dissertation essay, I study the effects of accounting information disclosure through auditing on firm level financial constraints and corruption obstacles. I find that audited firms exhibit significantly lower level of financial constraints than unaudited firms. Audited firms also encounter higher level of corruption obstacles than unaudited firms. The second essay examines three firm-level …

Two Essays On The Low Volatility Anomaly, Timothy B. Riley

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

I find the low volatility anomaly is present in all but the smallest of stocks. Portfolios can be formed on either total or idiosyncratic volatility to take advantage of this anomaly, but I show measures of idiosyncratic volatility are key. Standard risk-adjusted returns suggest that there is no low volatility anomaly from 1996 through 2011, but I find this result arises from model misspecification. Caution must be taken when analyzing high volatility stocks because their returns have a nonlinear relationship with momentum during market bubbles.

I then find that mutual funds with low return volatility in the prior year outperform …

Three Essays On Investments, Xin Hong

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

This dissertation consists of three essays on investments. The first essay examines the incidence, determinants, and consequences of hedge fund share restriction changes. This paper finds that nearly one in five hedge funds change their share restrictions (e.g., lockup) over the period of 2007-2012. Share restriction changes are not random. Fund’s asset illiquidity, liquidity risk, and performance are related to share restriction changes. A hazard model indicates that funds who actively manage liquidity concerns live longer by adjusting share restrictions. The paper examines whether changes in share restrictions create an endogeneity bias in the share illiquidity premium (Aragon, 2007) and …

Two Essays On Nonbank Financial Institutions, Di Kang

Theses and Dissertations--Finance and Quantitative Methods

Evidence shows that nonbanks, which are now significant participants in the corporate loan market, exploit information gained from lending to trade in public securities. In the first essay, I examine whether these institutions use loan-based information to facilitate merger and acquisition (M&A) deals. I find that firms are more likely to become targets if they borrow from nonbanks rather than banks. Borrowing from a larger number of nonbanks or from those with a sizeable client network also enhances a firm’s acquisition prospects. When nonbanks gain more information about borrowers through loan amendments or multiple loans, the impact of nonbank lending …

An After Tax Valuation Of Debt Instruments, Charles J. Higgins

Finance Faculty Works

The net present value of any loan at is own discount rate is shown to be zero in both pre tax and after tax worlds. This allows separation from any investment net present value analysis. Further, it simplifies the analysis and it is argued is appropriate even in weighted average cost of capital scenarios wherein the cost of capital equal to its own after tax discount rate and remains a zero in terms of its own net present value.

Editor's Note, Marites Tiongco

DLSU Business & Economics Review

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Structure And Dynamics Of The Philippine Macroeconomy: Results From A Dsge-Based Estimation, Ruperto P. Majuca

DLSU Business & Economics Review

I use Bayesian methods to estimate a medium-scale closed economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for the Philippine economy. Bayesian model selection techniques indicate that among the frictions introduced in the model, the investment adjustment costs, habit formation, and the price and wage rigidity features are important in capturing the dynamics of the data, while the variable capital utilization, fixed costs, and the price and wage indexation features are not important. I find that the Philippine macroeconomy is characterized by more instability than the U.S. economy. An analysis of the several subperiods in Philippine economic history also reveals some …

Liberalizing The Philippine Mining Industry: A Cge Approach Into Analyzing Its Sectoral Impacts On The Economy, Jesus Carlos Exequiel D. Castillo, Krista Danielle S. Yu

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The mining industry in the Philippines was once a promising venture that could contribute to the growth of output in the economy. Numerous legislations in support of mining in the Philippines that were passed through the years have proven ineffective in spurring development in the industry. Despite the spotted history of mining in the Philippines, the rising prices of precious metals in the world would seem that mining as a venue for output is as lustrous as ever. Due to the economic downturn in the mid 2000s, the markets turned their attention back to heavy investments in metals, causing most …

Martingales In Floating Asean+3 Currencies*, Cesar C. Rufino

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The martingale properties of the floating exchange rates of the ASEAN+3 region are analyzed in this study using contemporary (2000 to 2012) weekly data of inter-bank call rates. The main goal of the analysis is to see if informational efficiency is a feature floating (managed or independently floating) currencies in this coalition of countries still possess despite the current credit crisis and other economic shocks during the period. Employing relevant state-of-the-art econometric techniques, the study sets to empirically determine the presence of two important ingredients of informationally efficient market—the existence of the unit root component and the presence of uncorrelated …

Estimating The Efficiency Of Philippine Public High Schools Using Spatio-Temporal Stochastic Frontier Analysis, Michael Ralph M. Abrigo, Rouselle F. Lavado, Erniel B. Barrios, Brian C. Gozun

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This paper proposes a method for modeling production function of education using a stochastic frontier model with spatial temporal terms. Using a unique dataset that combines school achievement scores with school characteristics from 2005-2008, the efficiency of 4,900 public high schools in the Philippines in converting school inputs into test scores was estimated. Results show that the average inefficiency is at 41% and that there is a significant positive spatial externality in efficiency, which means that efficiency in one school can spill over to its neighbors. The model was found to be robust to various environmental variables included in the …

An Approximation Of The Internal Rate Of Return Of Investment In Selected Undergraduate Degree Programs, Editha A. Lupdag–Padama, John Paolo R. Rivera, Rhory C. Fernandez–Go, Krista Danielle S. Yu, Francesca Dianne B. Solis, Rosanina A. Sayoc

DLSU Business & Economics Review

The situation of a typical Filipino household, overseas employment, and the culture of migration are deemed as determinants for investing in higher education such as in the specialized fields of accountancy, education science and teacher training, engineering, and nursing. We examine both local and international labor demand for accountants, teachers, engineers, and nurses as well as its underlying implications on the exodus of professionals. As such, the determination of the internal rate of return to investment is of crucial importance to households to fully maximize educational opportunities and for the government and other institutions to confront this globally-changing situation. Using …

The Strategy Dilemma: Why Big Business Moves Seldom Pan Out As Planned, Niceto S. Poblador

DLSU Business & Economics Review

This article looks at the complex dynamics that underlie organizational change and attempts to explain why, under present uncertain environmental conditions, it is not possible to determine in advance the results of strategic moves made by businesses and other types of organizations. It discusses an alternative approach to strategy in today’s world of business and explores the practical applications of experimental methods to the management of change in today’s highly complex, extensively interconnected, and knowledge-driven world.