Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Dreams And Livelihoods In Rural Areas Require Capital, Too: An Investigation Into The Role Of Diminishing Community Banks, Financial Education, And Access To Capital In Rural Areas, Jackson Walton

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

Individuals in rural communities face unprecedented economic challenges due to a lack of financial education and a decline in the prevalence of community banks. These problems have continuously grown exponentially without successful attempt at remedy. The community banks that once served as the center of economic activity and prevalence in rural communities are leaving these communities quickly- leaving many without access to lines of credit, personal relationship banking, and without necessary financial education in a world with more financial options than ever. Access to banking and higher financial literacy proficiency rates are almost directly linked to better financial outcomes like …

Payments As A Tool For Policy, Aaron Klein

Brookings Scholar Lecture Series

What are the implications of using payment systems to enforce foreign policy (against Russia, Iran, Cuba, etc...) and domestic policy (on-line poker, cannabis, etc..)? What are the long-term ramifications for the United States, with its dominant status as a global financial system and home to the world reserve currency, using payment systems to achieve its political objectives? In this lecture, Brookings Institution scholar and former deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Department of Treasury, Aaron Klein discusses the pros, cons, and intended and unintended consequences of our current system. He proposes a path forward to maximize economic growth …

Nfl Positional Value In Terms Of Salary Cap Spending: Why Are Running Backs Undervalued?, Charlton Jackson

CMC Senior Theses

Running Backs over the past two decades have seen a contract value devaluation relative to other positions and the league's salary cap spending limit. The growth of running back salaries has stagnated in the past decade, and they currently fail to keep pace with the contracts for other positions. Through our empirical research, we were able to either reject or better explain existing reasoning for recent running back devaluation, such as the increase in passing volume, durability concerns, and running backs by committee. We found that the most significant change in the past 30 years of the NFL, since the …

More Than A Feeling: Exploring The Drivers Of Music Catalog Values, Emily Nutting

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines which characteristics of songs affect transaction price in the sale of artist’s music catalogs. My analysis tests many variables, including the number of years between the song’s release its catalog’s sale (age); the natural log of the number of Spotify streams the song has (popularity); the genre of the song; themes in the song, such as dating, violence, romance, obscenity, sadness, and feelings; and elements of the song like danceability, energy, loudness, instrumentalness (the prevalence of instrumentals relative to vocals in a song), and acousticness (the measure of sound made using instruments as opposed to electronic means). …

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 …

Principles Of Financial Management Chapter 1 - 4, Dorina Tila

Open Educational Resources

This work includes a teaching material that could be the embryonic stage of a textbook for a Principles of Financial Management course.

Principles of Financial Management is a course that introduces you to key financial concepts and the application of financial analysis in making sound business decisions. Topics covered are time value of money, risk and rates of return, asset valuation, capital budgeting, and capital structure, and more. At the end of the course, you will gain an understanding of financial assets, financial markets, financial intermediaries, and the banking system. You will also be able to understand financial statements (i.e., …

Esg Reporting And Its Effect On Financial Performance Of Oil, Gas, And Utility Companies In The United States, Logan Lam

Honors Theses

According to the Harvard Business Review article ESG Investing Isn’t Designed to Save the Plant (Pucker and King 2022), the term ESG investments – which stands for environmental, social, and governance investing – often confuses investors because it is unregulated. Additionally, the author continued to claim that the data is outdated and mostly unaudited. Even if data on these investments is available to investors, it can still be challenging for them to make decisions regarding ESG. Trusting compatibility and accuracy can be difficult considering that companies can choose how to produce or calculate their own ESG data. Another claim that …

Are Markets Interested In Adapting To Climate? Insights From Singapore, Stella Whittaker, Tran Bao Phuong Nguyen

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

We have collected the views of leading practitioners and academics in Singapore involved in funding and financing urban climate change adaptation1 (thereon referred to as urban adaptation). Throughout this paper we discuss several vital perspectives on adaptation financing, namely responsibility for adaptation investment, the extent of government adaptation investment, private sector adaptation investment appetite and prospects for experimentation in adaptation financing. We also attempt to shed light on the existence or not of an adaptation financing gap2 in Singapore.

Determinants Of Profitability Of Commercial Bank In Afghanistan, Mohammad Osman Saeedi

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Over the past two decades, the global financial sector, particularly the banking industry, has undergone significant transformations impacting its performance. Recognizing the pivotal role of the financial sector in economic growth, this study focuses on Afghanistan's banking sector, tracing its roots to the establishment of the first commercial banking institution, Bank Millie Afghan, in 1933. Following decades of war, the banking sector experienced revitalization after 2001, marked by the emergence of a new government, international aid inflow, and increased business activities. Despite remarkable growth, Afghanistan's banking sector faces challenges such as security concerns, cultural issues, and a developing banking culture. …

Ownership Of Esg Characteristics, Mark E. Bateman, Lisa R. Goldberg

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

A portfolio can be viewed as the collection of the businesses, policies and practices of constituent companies. We measure investors' Ownership of this collection. Ownership metrics aggregate an assortment of company specific Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) characteristics to the portfolio level, and they can inform investment and engagement decisions. Relative to a benchmark, investor Ownership is active and satisfies a zero-sum property, which underscores the distinction between Ownership and impact. Ownership of ESG characteristics may be interpreted as ascribing ethical responsibility, but that conclusion and any decisions that result from it belong to the investor.

Financial Institutions Continue To Adopt Crypto Despite Industry Turmoil, Andre Beganski

Capstones

Even though this calamitous year has raised doubts about crypto's future, not a single large financial institution has backed away from their forays into digital assets. And despite a period of turmoil that’s seen the market value of all cryptocurrencies crater to under $880 billion from over $3 trillion, many sizable firms continue to view crypto as an emerging sector of finance and technology that’s rife with opportunity.

While financial firms have the potential to foster a widespread perception of cryptocurrencies as a legitimate asset class, their involvement runs counter to the intent of those who pioneered blockchain technology for …

Finance And Fear: Sentiment, Media, And Financial Markets During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Alison N. Sommers

Honors Theses

This thesis aims to build on existing research of market psychology and the effect of sentiment on financial markets. The main objective of this study is to determine the ability of investors to make rational decisions during the most recent period of high sentiment. The anomalies that have occurred in the stock market can be better understood by market psychology which focuses on the biases and social factors that influence investors. The media is a newly relevant factor impacting the volume of sentiment present in the market. A review of literature reveals that many studies of sentiment and financial market’s …

Save, Gamble, Or Both? The Relationship Between Premium Bond Sales And Lottery Sales In The United Kingdom, Kaden Grace

Honors Theses

Four out of every ten Americans are unable to pay for an unexpected $400 bill out of their savings accounts. To ameliorate this problem, one policy to incentivize saving is a Prize-Linked Savings Account (PLSA). Unlike a traditional savings account that pays out a consistent rate of return, a PLSA pools the interest on all deposits and distributes the returns in randomly drawn prizes (similar to a lottery). However, PLSAs remain illegal in many areas due to a concern that the introduction of a private or public PLSA could cannibalize revenue from an existing state-sponsored lottery, thus restricting the state’s …

Support New Business To Solve Old Problems With Kentucky’S Keystone Waste From Bourbon & Brewing, Samuel C. Kessler

Commonwealth Policy Papers

Provided here is a policy solution from the backside of Kentucky bourbon and brewing to upcycle Kentucky’s “keystone” wastes and grow businesses in the process. Potential effects range from removing the bottleneck on bourbon production and producing GHG-friendly biogas to lowering the price of milk.This full whitepaper brief provides an incentive model for keystone wastes which have a provider and a use. It is equally applicable for policymakers or advocates wishing to place a policy incentive behind waste-to-product upcycling, businesses involved with methane sequestration & renewable biogas energy, and shifting regulatory and penalizing models of pollution into incentive model for …

The Impact Of Student Debt On Career Choices Among Doctor Of Public Health Graduates In The United States: A Descriptive Analysis, Chulwoo Park, Eric Coles

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

(1) Background: As gaps in the public health workforce grow in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, graduates of the schools of public health, especially Doctors of Public Health (DrPH), are poised to offer relief. While there are some known recruitment issues, student debt and debt impact on career choices are understudied. (2) Methods: In the present study, we perform a descriptive analysis of the potential impact of student debt on career choices among DrPH students and alumni in the United States using a cross-sectional national online survey. A total of 203 participants (66: alumni and 137: current students) completed …

Don’T Believe The Hype, Big Finance Continues To Threaten Our Survival, Martin Hart-Landsberg

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This article is reprinted with permission from Reports From The Economic Front and the author.

Our special thanks to the author, Dr. Martin Hart-Landsberg.

Recessionary Effects On Transfer Fees In European Professional Football, Pierce Snyder

Honors Theses

Association football, most commonly referred to internationally as football, is the world’s most popular sport with billions of fans. Professional football leagues operate in countries all over the globe. While other continents have prominent and successful teams, Europe is the sport’s summit for the club level of competition. Europe boasts the best five leagues in the world, commonly referred to as “the big five”: the Bundesliga (Germany), La Liga (Spain), Ligue 1 (France), Premier League (England), and Serie A (Italy). In the 2016-2017 season, these five leagues accounted for 12.6 billion pounds—57.5 percent—of European football’s revenues of about 21.9 billion …

Us Financial Expansions And Exchange Rate Determination, Matthew Brill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how US financial activity influences the exchange rates of foreign nations. Starting off by building on Currency Hierarchy and Minskyan dynamics, I look at how financial cycles generated in the US, the key economy, transmit liquidity towards economies on the periphery. Additionally, I use the increase in shadow banking asset accumulation relative to commercial banking asset accumulation as indicative of financial expansions in the US, and the driving force of financial cycles. Using vector autoregression (VAR) analysis I test the relationships between the ratio of US shadow banking assets relative to commercial …

Ceo Types And Firm Efficiency, Lok Chi Lam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates the connection between CEO types and firm efficiency. I utilize the general ability index (GAI) as a proxy to examine and separate CEO types: generalist CEOs and specialist CEOs. Initially, I applied the pooled ordinary least square (OLS) and fixed effect regression on 26,830 firm-year observations to explore the GAI effect on firm efficiency. The finding shows that GAI has a negative impact on firm efficiency. It indicates that CEOs with lower GAI are better at improving firm efficiency; for instance, specialist CEOs are preferable to generalist CEOs. Further analysis of CEO types using the quadrant method …

Environmental Social Governance: Uncovering Strengths, Weaknesses, And Misconceptions In Esg Disclosure And Rating, Kirsten Helena Ostbirk

Senior Projects Spring 2022

ESG is a metric designed to assess the extent to which a company has mitigated its risks with regard to environmental, social, and governance factors. In the past two decades, ESG investing and adoption has risen significantly, and ESG evaluation and practices are increasingly being introduced to governments and the private sector. However, today, ESG disclosure is not mandated in the United States, leading to asymmetries in disclosure quality and divergence in ESG scores issued by ratings providers. These massive discrepancies have consequences for companies (e.g. cost of capital), investors (e.g. investment hesitance, lost potential returns), and the ESG metric …

The Economic And Social Decline Of Women's Colleges Across The United States, Alexandra Isabelle Rivasplata

Scripps Senior Theses

Women have been attending college at a greater rate than men for several decades. However, women’s colleges have been shutting down or transitioning to coeducation at incredibly high rates. Literature demonstrates the importance of women’s colleges due to their benefits on students’ future career success and psychological wellbeing. However, there is less research concerning the decline of women's colleges, and none regarding the economic and quantitative factors influencing their closures. Using a newly constructed, completely original data set, I perform a logistic regression and analyze variables related to the survival of women’s colleges. I find a high statistical significance of …

Testing The Relationship Between Confidence And Effort: A Behavioral Finance Perspective On The Problem Of Financial Literacy, Louie Bernard A. Jacob, Miguel Angelo S. Rabago, Hans Erickson A. Tan, Lawrence B. Dacuycuy, Gerardo L. Largoza, Maria Fe Carmen L. Dabbay

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

This experimental study tested the relationship between confidence and effort with the ultimate objective of discovering how these factors may influence financial literacy. This was done through a modified version of a slider test and ball allocation task. The population consisted of 85 random participants who were primarily approached through social media. A simple OLS regression, along with robustness checks, namely the Tobit model and instrumental variable (IV) regression model using Tobit estimators, were utilized to confirm the causal relationship between confidence and effort.

Canadian Banks And Imperialism In The English-Speaking Caribbean, Tamanisha J. John

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Canadian banks have been important components of an imperialist system since at least the 19^th century. However, their long and rich history of operating as purely exploitative entities in the English-speaking Caribbean region is often overlooked— leading to many incomplete and conflicting narratives about Canada’s role within the global system. I argue that Canada is an imperial actor that exerts agency in supporting a Canadian banking oligopoly both within Canada and in the English-speaking Caribbean. Insufficient attention is given to these Canadian banks, especially considering the power they have wielded in the Caribbean over the centuries. By analyzing the …

How Has Covid-19 Affected Financial Gains Of Big-Tech Companies?, Erin Flanigen

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the financial returns received by Big-Tech companies in order to predict future financial returns and related business activities. The main objectives of this paper are to delineate business models and financial statements of Big-Tech companies prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, present ample, relevant economic information regarding COVID-19, and encompass the effects of COVID-19 on global economies. This study then predicts the future economic effects of COVID-19 on Big-Tech companies. The selected Big-Tech companies included in this study are Facebook, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon; each company saw …

The Public Banking Movement In The United States: Networks, Agenda, Initiatives, And Challenges, Esra Nur Ugurlu, Gerald Epstein

PERI Working Papers

In this paper, we analyze the contemporary public banking initiatives in the US. We first provide a brief historical account of public-oriented banking in the US. We then map out the central nodes in the contemporary public banking advocacy networks. Based on an online questionnaire and semi-structured interviews we held with public banking organizers and experts across the country, we provide an overview of the achievements of this growing movement, describe the central socio- economic issues they organize around, and examine the challenges they face. We demonstrate that the interest in public banking is a reaction to a number of …

The Impact Of The Capital Market, The Insurance Sector And The Mortgage Finance Sector On Economic Growth In Egypt, 2005-2019, Hana Anis

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to explore the relationship between financial markets and economic growth in Egypt for the 15 years period, starting from 2005 to 2019. The study concentrates on the non-banking financial sector which includes the stock market, the debt market, the mortgage and the insurance sectors. The Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model is utilized to describe the relationship between GDP growth rate, as a proxy for economic growth, and a number of variables from the financial sector. Results of the analysis show that there is a significant relationship and statistical causality between the growth rate and the debt market, represented …

Market Efficiency: Its Economic And Theological Implications, Fan Fei

Faculty Tenure Papers

In finance, market efficiency, or equivalently, the Efficient Market Hypothesis, assumes that the market can transmit information completely, instantly, and freely so that asset prices reflect the fair value of the investment. An efficient market would imply that the prices were always right and that no group of investors should be able to consistently beat the market. In this article, I review the evolution of modern finance and the evidence for and against the Efficient Market Hypothesis. Decades of empirical research and historical events, such as dot-com bubble and the 2007-2008 Global Financial Crisis, resulted in a paradigm shift and …

The Effect Of Female Managers On Mutual Fund Performance During Down Markets, Madison Gates, Madison I. Gates

Scripps Senior Theses

Women in the finance industry have long been underrepresented. The mutual fund industry is no exception, with female managers in the United States falling stagnant at only 11% from 2000 to 2019. Given this low and stagnant number, this study seeks to understand if female managers impact mutual fund performance, specifically comparing down and up market periods. The data for this research was compiled from individual US mutual fund prospectus and fact sheet information in order to create a unique dataset containing the returns for every year between 2000 and 2019 as well as gender make-up, average experience, and team …

Stock Returns By Sector And Industries In A Year Into The Covid-19 Pandemic, Simon Alvin A. Casas

Honors Undergraduate Theses

In the COVID-19 stock market industries reacted and were affected in different ways. This paper will use Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) codes to look at how sectors and selected industries fared after a whole year in a pandemic. This will be accomplished by comparing 2019 stock returns to 2020 stock returns with a t-test and estimating the effect of COVID-19 positive case and death increases using a pooled OLS regression. All SIC sectors A-J were analyzed as well as 18 selected industries such as food stores, real estate, oil and gas extraction, health services, and communications. Results show a significant …

Zoom In, Class Out: An Event Study On Publicly Traded Ed Tech Firm Valuations During Covid-19, Matiss Ozols

CMC Senior Theses

This paper examines how publicly traded Ed Tech firms reacted to negative announcements regarding COVID-19. Using an event study method, I document how an international portfolio of Ed Tech firms react across multiple event windows. The results show that Ed Tech firms reacted positively to the announcement of the first US death and negatively to the World Health Organization’s declaration that COVID-19 was a pandemic. Additionally, differences in geographical location did not impact cumulative abnormal returns across event windows. Finally, firm-specific characteristics such as volatility and financial leverage had little or no significance on stock returns.