Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Impact Of Exports To China On Latin American Growth, Andre C. Vianna

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article analyzes the relationship between GDP growth in seven major Latin American countries and China’s demand for their exports. GLS panel estimation using annual data for the period 1994-2013 shows that the relationship was both statistically and economically significant. Control variables found to be significant in positively affecting GDP growth include the investment-to-output ratio, the exchange rate, and the terms of trade, and, in negatively affecting it, population growth and the unemployment rate. Consistent with recent literature, foreign direct investment was found not to be significant. A sharp drop in exports to China for many of the countries in …

Drivers Behind The Monitoring Effectiveness Of Global Institutional Investors: Evidence From Earnings Management, Incheol Kim, Steve Miller, Hong Wan, Bin Wang

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper studies the drivers behind the monitoring effectiveness of institutional investors in curbing earnings management in an international setting. We identify three distinct drivers and propose two competing hypotheses: the hometown advantage hypothesis predicts that because of proximity to monitoring information, domestic institutions have a comparative advantage over foreign institutions in deterring earnings management, whereas the global investor hypothesis predicts that foreign institutions have a comparative advantage because of their proclivity toward activism and ability to deploy superior monitoring technologies. Consistent with the hometown advantage hypothesis, in aggregate, domestic, but not foreign, institutional ownership is associated with less earnings …

Does Globalization Affect Top Income Inequality?, Rene Cabral, Rocio Garcia-Diaz, Andre V. Mollick

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

We reexamine in this paper the role of globalization on top income shares (five classes from top 0.1% to top 10% of the income distribution) for a sample of 15 economies over the period 1970–2004. We investigate financial globalization measures that complement trade openness. Our system GMM (SGMM) estimations allow for a robust treatment of the endogeneity between income concentration and GDP per capita (as well as with taxation or government size). We find two interesting new results. First, the financial integration measure based on portfolio equity and FDI stocks (GEQ) turns out to have a large impact on top …

Are Us-Dollar-Hedged-Etf Investors Aggressive On Exchange Rates? A Panel Var Approach, Corey A. Shank, Andre C. Vianna

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

Exchange traded funds (ETFs) are a multi-trillion dollar market that epitomizes financialization due to its recent growth. This study examines the behavior of U.S. listed currency hedged ETF investors towards changes in the underlying benchmark and foreign exchange rate from July 2011 to November 2015 using a panel VAR approach. We find that investors are able to anticipate changes in future exchange rates and invest in currency hedged ETFs prior to changes. Granger-causality tests confirm that these investors proactively trade before large real exchange rate movements. These results suggest that the use of financial instruments such as ETFs to hedge …

Institutional Ownership Stability And Real Earnings Management, Hamid Sakaki, Dave Jackson, Surendranath Jory

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

We examine the relationship between institutional ownership stability and real earnings management. Our findings indicate that firms held by more stable institutional owners experience lower real activities manipulation by limiting overproduction. We further examine how the stability in the shareholdings of pressure-sensitive and insensitive institutional investors affect target firms’ use of real earnings management, respectively. Unlike pressure-sensitive institutional investors, the stability in the share ownership of pressure-insensitive institutional investors (i.e., investment advisors, pension funds and endowments) mitigates target firms’ use of real earnings management. Overall, our results are consistent with the view that institutional investors presence acts as a monitor …

Long-Run Equilibrium Shift And Short-Run Dynamics Of U.S. Home Price Tiers During The Housing Bubble, Damian S. Damianov, Diego Escobari

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

We use vector error correction models to examine the interdependence between the high and the low price tiers during the latest housing market boom and bust. For 118 of the 364 US statistical areas analyzed, the tiered price indexes are bound by a long-run relationship. In general, low tier homes appreciated more than high tier homes in the past two decades. In contrast to previous periods of high volatility, however, low tier homes appreciated more during the boom and lost more value during the bust of the market. We find a shift in the long-run equilibrium during the bubble —the …

Reducing Asymmetric Information In Venture Capital Backed Ipos, Diego Escobari, Alejandro Serrano

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to model asymmetric information and study the profitability of venture capital (VC) backed initial public offerings (IPOs). The mixtures approach endogenously separates IPOs into differentiated groups based on their returns’ determinants. The authors also analyze the factors that affect the probability that IPOs belong to a specific group.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors propose a new method to model asymmetric information between investors and firms in VC backed IPOs. The approach allows the authors to identify differentiated companies under incomplete information. The authors use a sample of 2,404 US firms from 1980 through 2012 to …

Lep Language Disability, Immigration Reform, And English-Language Acquisition, Alberto Dávila, Marie T. Mora

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

Policy might partly shape the English-language acquisition of Hispanics migrating to the U.S. mainland, particularly policies related to limited-English-language disability benefits and immigration reform. Using data from the American Community Survey, we find that island-born Puerto Ricans on the U.S. mainland, as U.S. citizens, may have lower incentives to learn English than Hispanic immigrants because of their higher participation in LEP disability programs. However, among Mexican immigrants, recent immigration reform aimed at interior enforcement might have increased incentives for Mexican immigrants to learn English to reduce their probability of detection, if speaking English proxies for undocumented status.

Us Airport Ownership, Efficiency, And Heterogeneity, Levent Kutlu, Patrick Mccarthy

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

All US commercial airports are in the public sector yet not all have the same ownership type. For medium and large hub US airports we use stochastic frontier analysis to analyze the efficiency differences for alternative airport ownership types. We find that while form of ownership may matter for cost efficiency, in general its effect is relatively small. Yet type of public sector ownership does have cost efficiency implications in certain environments. Further, when heterogeneity is not controlled, the results change substantially so that type of ownership matters much more which demonstrates the importance of controlling for cross section heterogeneity.

Date Stamping Bubbles In Real Estate Investment Trusts, Diego Escobari, Mohammad Jafarinejad

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

We test for the existence of single and multiple bubble periods in four Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) indices using the Supremum Augmented Dickey-Fuller (SADF) and the Generalized SADF. These methods allow us to estimate the beginning and the end of bubble periods. Our results provide statistically significant evidence of speculative bubbles in the REIT index and its three components: Equity, Mortgage and Hybrid REITs. These results may be valuable for real estate financial managers and for investors in REITs.

Violence In Mexico And Its Effects On Labor Productivity, Rene Cabral, Andre V. Mollick, Eduardo Saucedo

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper examines the evolution of Mexico’s labor productivity (GDP per worker) across its 32 sub-national entities from 2003 to 2013, during a period of rising drug-related crimes. Using quarterly data and economic controls, fixed effects models suggest the effects of crime are small and differ depending on whether such crimes are prosecuted by state/local or federal authorities. However, results from System Generalized Methods of Moments regressions generate stronger responses for (endogenous) wages and labor productivity. First, crime has negative effects on Mexican labor productivity across states during the “war on drugs” period. Second, increases in expenditures on public security …

The Impact Of Government Intervention On The Stabilization Of Domestic Financial Markets And On U.S. Banks’ Asset Composition, Peter V. Egly, Diego Escobari, David W. Johnk

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

The 2007–2009 financial crisis that evolved from various factors including the housing boom, aggressive lending activity, financial innovation, and increased access to money and capital markets prompted unprecedented U.S. government intervention in the financial sector. We examine changes in banks’ balance sheet composition associated with U.S. government intervention during the crisis. We find that the initial round of quantitative easing positively impacts bank liquidity across all bank samples. Our results show a positive impact of repurchase agreement market rates on bank liquidity for small and medium banks. We conclude that banks have become more liquid in the post-crisis period, especially …

Do U.S. Firms Fly Higher When Bypassing The U.S. Capital Markets? An Investigation Of The Short-Term Performance Of Foreign Ipos, Robert N. Killins, Peter V. Egly

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper investigates the performance of U.S. firms that partake in a foreign IPO – bypassing their domestic exchanges and raising their equity in a foreign market. The globalization of equity markets along with the increased regulations to financial markets in the U.S. has potentially led to the U.S. losing its title as the premier listing market. Using a sample of 77 U.S. based firms that totally bypassed the U.S. equity markets in their capital(equity) raising activities we are able to investigate the performance of this unique sample of firms. This investigation contributes to the literature by finding that U.S. …

The Liquidity Crisis, Investor Sentiment, And Reit Returns And Volatility, Daniel Huerta, Peter V. Egly, Diego Escobari

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

The real estate investment trust (REIT) industry experienced a liquidity crisis resulting from reduced access to credit commitments as banks were restoring their balance sheets during the 2007–2009 financial crisis. Employing generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) models, we examine the impact of the liquidity crisis and investor sentiment on REIT returns and volatility over the December 2001 to February 2013 period. We find that the liquidity crisis negatively impacts REIT returns and helps explain increases in volatility; this finding is robust to multiple specifications. We show that investor sentiment is a significant factor in the REIT return-generating process with institutional …