Finance Commons^™

Information Loss In Volatility Measurement With Flat Price Trading, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

A model of financial asset price determination is proposed that incorporates flat trading features into an efficient price process. The model involves the superposition of a Brownian semimartingale process for the effcient price and a Bernoulli process that determines the extent of price trading. The approach is related to sticky price modeling and the Calvo pricing mechanism in macroeconomic dynamics. A limit theory for the conventional realized volatility (RV) measure of integrated volatility is developed. The results show that RV is still consistent but has an inflated asymptotic variance that depends on the probability of flat trading. Estimated quarticity is …

Economic Impacts Of Investment Facilitation, Edward J. Balistreri, Zoryana Olekseyuk

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

After the successful adoption of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in 2014, investment facilitation is gaining importance as the next policy priority for a plurilateral agreement under the World Trade Organization (WTO). In fact, more than 110 WTO Members aim to conclude the negotiations on the Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) Agreement by mid-2023 after only three years of formal negotiations. Investment facilitation refers to actions taken by governments designed to attract foreign investment and maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of its administration through all stages of the investment cycle. The IFD agreement focuses on allowing investment to flow efficiently …

Essays On Tax Impacts On Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance And Regional Disparity, Mei Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that cover topics on tax impacts on corporate finance, regional disparity and corporate governance.

Chapter 1 - How Do Net Operating Loss Carryforwards Affect Tax Impact on Corporate Capital Structure? This paper examines the impact of net operating loss (NOL) carryforwards on the tax implications of corporate capital structure. Leveraging the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), the largest tax reform in four decades, this paper investigates the effect of NOL carryforwards on firms' sensitivity to tax reforms. As NOL carryforwards have become increasingly significant since 2000, but not widely researched due …

How’S It Going With The Cptpp?, Christine Mcdaniel

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

There is no doubt that the United States is losing out on market access. But one of the original goals of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was for a rules-based trading regime in the Pacific, namely rules not written by China. Thanks to Australia and Japan that seems to be happening even with the U.S. no longer at the helm.

The Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership or the awkwardly nicknamed CPTPP is a Pacific trading bloc that consists of 11 countries, spanning the Pacific Rim, and includes Malaysia and Chile. The member countries represent 13% of world GDP. Once the UK …

The Effect Of Quantitative Easing On The Financial Market In Canada, Ashiqur Rahman

Major Papers

This empirical study examines the effects of quantitative easing (QE) on the Canadian financial market. Specifically, the study focuses on the Bank of Canada's Government of Canada Bond Purchase Program (GBPP), conducted during COVID-19 between 2020 and 2022. I use two analytical methods, e.g., event study and time series analysis, to quantify the impact of the Bank of Canada's large asset purchases on the 10-year government bond yield's term premium. The results indicate that the Bank of Canada's $260 billion asset purchases in 2020 would reduce the 10-year term premium by 34 basis points, which suggests the significant impact of …

Exploring The Adoption And Impact Of Bitcoin: A Comparative Analysis, Zachary S. Biedscheid

2023 Symposium

Bitcoin, a decentralized digital currency, has gained significant attention recently as a potential alternative to traditional financial systems. This research project aims to explore the adoption and impact of Bitcoin by conducting a comparative analysis of its use in different countries and regions. The study will begin by examining the history and evolution of Bitcoin, its underlying technology, and its potential advantages and disadvantages compared to traditional financial systems. The project will then investigate Bitcoin adoption in different regions, including North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, by analyzing data from relevant sources such as surveys, news articles, and academic research. …

Fafsa Completion: Considerations For An Extension-Led Statewide Nudge Campaign, Portia L. Johnson, Kacee Ross, Emily Hines

The Journal of Extension

Eight U.S. states have enacted legislation that mandates high school seniors to act on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) before graduation. At least 10 other states are considering implementing similar FAFSA requirements. While proponents of the law believe it will affect postsecondary education and the workforce positively, dissenters argue that the policy is an unfunded mandate that taxes students and parents without offering adequate resources. This article synthesizes existing literature related to policy-related nudge campaigns to provide an Extension-led, cost-effective strategy to achieve the FAFSA mandate’s goal and improve citizens’ FAFSA completion behavior.

No More Empty Stadiums: A Meta Analysis Of Mega Sporting Events And Their Economic Impact, Tayte O. Gleason

Honors Thesis

Mega sporting events have faced increased scrutiny in recent decades for their negative economic impacts, externalities, and environmental effects. As multimillion dollar stadiums lay abandoned and future host city bids are withdrawn as public opinion on mega sporting events worsens with time, economists, governing bodies, and sports fans worry about the future locations of these massive sports festivals. In my thesis, I will conduct a meta analysis of articles measuring the various impacts and effects of hosting a mega sporting event. I will begin by performing an extensive literature review of the various factors contributing to a mega sporting event’s …

Predicting High-Cap Tech Stock Polarity: A Combined Approach Using Support Vector Machines And Bidirectional Encoders From Transformers, Ian L. Grisham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The abundance, accessibility, and scale of data have engendered an era where machine learning can quickly and accurately solve complex problems, identify complicated patterns, and uncover intricate trends. One research area where many have applied these techniques is the stock market. Yet, financial domains are influenced by many factors and are notoriously difficult to predict due to their volatile and multivariate behavior. However, the literature indicates that public sentiment data may exhibit significant predictive qualities and improve a model’s ability to predict intricate trends. In this study, momentum SVM classification accuracy was compared between datasets that did and did not …

Debt And The Medicare Eligibility Discontinuity: Disparate Effects Across Households, Olivia Falck

Honors Theses

Public health insurance programs like Medicare and Medicaid have been shown to help reduce household debt caused by healthcare costs. The impact of health insurance literacy makes the relationship between public health programs and debt more ambiguous. The increasing complexity of Medicare raises the question of whether cost savings associated with enrollment might be mitigated by the complexity of choosing the ideal plan for those with low health insurance literacy. In this study, I utilize the Medicare eligibility cutoff at age 65 to implement a regression discontinuity design that analyzes the impact of Medicare eligibility on household debt and out …

Bridging The Chasm Between Fundamental, Momentum, And Quantitative Investing, Allen Hoskins, Jeff Reed, Robert Slater

SMU Data Science Review

A chasm exists between the active public equity investment management industry's fundamental, momentum, and quantitative styles. In this study, the researchers explore ways to bridge this gap by leveraging domain knowledge, fundamental analysis, momentum, crowdsourcing, and data science methods. This research also seeks to test the developed tools and strategies during the volatile time period of 2020 and 2021.

Drowning In Debt: Understanding Debt-For-Climate Swaps Through A Case Study Of The Belize Blue Bond, Sheil Desai

Honors Theses (PPE)

Debt-for-climate swaps are an increasingly popular policy to help developing countries achieve debt sustainability and invest in climate action. However, there is a lack of research that critically evaluates the limitations of debt-for-climate swaps. In this paper, I seek to understand the challenges and successes of debt-for-climate swap through an analysis of the 2021 Belize Blue Bond, a case study representing the most ambitious and innovative debt-for-climate swap to date. I begin with an overview of the global eco-bond market and the history and structure of debt-for-climate swaps. I then retrace the economic history of Belize to contextualize the events …

Liquidity Constraints, Consumption, And Debt Repayment: Evidence From Macroprudential Policy In Turkey, Sumit Agarwal, Muris Hadzic, Changcheng Song, Yildirim Yildiray

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using account-level credit card data from a large Turkish bank, we study the impact of a unique credit card policy that increases minimum payment on consumption and debt repayment. We show that the policy reduces credit card spending and debt, boosts existing debt repayment, and reduces credit card delinquency. The credit card debt of affected consumers falls on average by 50% two years into the policy’s implementation. An increase in minimum payment has a stronger effect than does a decrease of a similar magnitude. We build a benchmark life cycle model with soft liquidity constraint to explain the reduction in …

Recessionary Woes: Examining Economic Policies And Their Impact On Student Loan Debt And Housing Stability In The United States, Connor Recck

Senior Theses and Projects

Recessionary periods can seldom be avoided, but our modern public infrastructure has designed mechanisms to respond to these downturns. Economic policy has rapidly changed over the last 50 years, and the types of tools policymakers use have evolved with it. When looking at the Great Recession (2007-2009) and the COVID-19 recession (2020), a federal response structure was vital for the health of the macroeconomy. These recessionary periods serve as case studies for a review of economic policymaking activity in the United States since 2000. To examine the efficacy of the federal government’s fiscal and monetary infrastructure, policies focused on supporting …

Calculating Efficiency For Spatial Autoregressive Stochastic Frontier Model, Levent Kutlu

Economics and Finance Faculty Publications and Presentations

When there are efficiency spillovers, we can use a spatial autoregressive stochastic frontier model to estimate total (spillover-corrected) efficiencies. Glass et al. (2016) provide a formula for total efficiency in this context, which is an approximation. We provide the exact formula for the spillover-corrected efficiency. Moreover, we derive total, direct, and indirect marginal effects of environmental variables on spillover-corrected efficiency.

Macroeconomic Determinants Of Stock Market Development In Sample African Economies, Ehab Ayoub

Theses and Dissertations

This research paper studies the relationship between macroeconomic determinants as independent variables and different measures of stock market development as dependent variables across selected emerging economies in Africa for the period of 2002 to 2021, with a quarterly frequency using time series analysis. The independent variables used are Core Inflation, Deposit Rate, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), FX Rate against USD, Domestic Credit, Gross Domestic Product (Real GDP), Exports, Imports, External Debt, and Foreign Reserves. We use these variables as our main determinants of measuring economic growth. With regards to stock market development, we use four proxy measures as our benchmark, …

Public Support: A Missing Variable In The Trade Policy Equation, Jill O’Donnell

Yeutter Institute International Trade Policy Review

As Canada considers launching free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with Ecuador, the government wants to know what Canadians think. Ottawa makes it easy for citizens to weigh in, inviting Canadians to “join the discussion” and submit their “views, reflections and priorities” on the potential FTA through a Global Affairs Canada web page that is clear, inviting, and user-friendly. Under a section titled, “Who should participate?” the first answer given is “individuals.”

Although the Biden administration has been clear that it will not seek new FTA negotiations, taking a page from Canada’s public consultation playbook may be instructive, at least when …

The Zero-Leverage Policy And Family Firms, Pedram Fardnia, Maher Kooli, Sonal Kumar

Finance Journal Articles

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to examine the zero-leverage (ZL) phenomenon in family and non-family firms.

Design/methodology/approach – The authors consider three hypotheses and empirically test them using a sample of the largest US firms over the 2001–2016 period.

Findings – The authors find that, on average, 19.20% of family firms have zero debt vs 10.42% for non-family firms. The authors also find that family firms strategically choose to be ZL to maintain financial flexibility for future investments and exercise control over the decision-making process, consistent with the hypotheses of financial flexibility and control considerations. However, non-family …

Exchange-Traded Funds And Real Investment, Constantinos Antoniou, Frank Weikai Li, Xuewen Liu, Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, Chengzhu Sun

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We investigate the link between exchange-traded funds and real investment. Cross-sectionally, higher ETF ownership is associated with an increased sensitivity of real investment to Tobin's q and a heightened ability of stock returns to forecast future earnings. Inclusion of stocks in industry ETFs enhances investment-q sensitivity and implies greater incorporation of earnings information into prices prior to public releases. Greater nonmarket ETF ownership leads to increased (reduced) reliance of real investment on own (peers') stock prices. Overall, the evidence is consistent with ETFs positively affecting real investment efficiency via greater flows of information.

Bubble Testing Under Polynomial Trends, Xiaohu Wang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops the asymptotic theory of the least squares estimator of the autoregressive (AR) coefficient in an AR(1) regression with intercept when data is generated from a polynomial trend model in different forms. It is shown that the commonly used right-tailed unit root tests tend to favor the explosive alternative. A new procedure, which implements the right-tailed unit root tests in an AR(2) regression, is proposed. It is shown that when the data generating process has a polynomial trend, the test statistics based on the new procedure cannot find evidence of explosiveness. Whereas, when the data generating process is …