Finance Commons^™

Exploring The Experiences Of African American Women Parents’ Role Regarding Financial Socialization In Sacramento, California., Anita Renee Johnson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Financial socialization encompasses the process of acquiring financial values, attitudes, norms, knowledge, and behaviors, with parental influence being pivotal in shaping children's financial understanding and well-being. This study addresses the lack of comprehensive research on the financial socialization experiences of African American women and the role played by parents in shaping their financial management skills, self-efficacy, and identity. By bridging this gap, this study provides valuable insights into the financial socialization processes within African American families, which can have long-term impacts on economic outcomes and wealth-building strategies. Recognizing a gap in the literature, this study addresses the lack of comprehensive …

Machine Learning As Arbitrage: Can Economics Help Explain Ai?, Huahao Lu, Matthew Spiegel, Hong Zhang

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

Machine learning algorithms have shown to be remarkably successful tools for predicting asset returns. However, the underlying economic mechanisms behind their performance remain unclear. This paper proposes a model-based dynamic arbitrage trading strategy that combines economic and statistical nonstationarity to demystify this black box. In predicting stock returns based on 153 firm characteristics (anomalies), our strategy ranks anomalies similarly to neural networks in the cross-section. Overall, it accounts for approximately 87.9 bps monthly alphas of the high-minus-low portfolios selected by neural networks in the time series. When unpublished anomalies and microcap stocks are excluded from trading, this strategy can fully …

Essays On Macroeconomics And Banking, Christopher Naubert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters.

Chapter 1 - The Heterogeneous Effects of Interest Rate Liftoff in an Estimated New Keynesian Model In recent years, the question of how central banks should proceed with lifting interest rates from the zero lower bound has moved into focus. I study how alternative plans for interest rate liftoff affect households across the income and wealth distribution in an estimated New Keynesian model with fixed heterogeneity and aggregate shocks. I solve the model globally and develop a new methodology for estimating globally solved, non-linear models. In the estimated model, I find that all agents …

Prurient Nature: Sex Work And Ethics At The Margins Of Finance, Esra S. Padgett

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is an ethnographic and semiotic examination of the relationship between payment processing, transactional technologies, and the US adult industry. Based on twenty-four months of fieldwork in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami, and Washington D.C., the dissertation demonstrates that transactional infrastructures, including payment processors, credit card systems, financial institutions like banks, as well as novel technologies like cryptocurrency, have become a key site for an ongoing ethical war around the politics of sex and sex work in the United States. On one hand, ethical fears around sex work have become qualifications for economic exclusion by financial institutions and private …

Essays In Machine Learning, Econometrics, And Computational Economics, Lulu Wang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Chapter 1 Data-Driven Graph Neural Networks And Realized Volatility Prediction through Graph Discovery: Financial markets’ interconnectedness plays a crucial role in financial predictions. However, existing network structures often fall short in aligning with specific prediction tasks. This paper presents a novel model that integrates graph discovery techniques with Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) to address this challenge, focusing on short-term intraday realized volatility prediction. Our investigation from a graph theory perspective reveals that precision-based graph discovery methods substantially enhance GNNs accuracy by generating meaningful graphs and node embeddings. In contrast, conventional covariance-based approaches exhibit limited effectiveness due to their consideration of …

Using Mentimeter In Online Book Clubs To Engage And Educate Extension Audiences, Nichole Huff, Miranda Bejda, Emily Dewitt, Heather Norman-Burgdolf, Melinda Mcculley

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Cooperative Extension professionals, like many others, were tasked with quickly adapting to accommodate limited face-to-face interactions. The pandemic necessitated that Extension educators leverage online resources to deliver tailored programming in informative and innovative ways while providing engaging, hands-on learning experiences. This article highlights two studies using Mentimeter as a tool to educate and engage Extension audiences through subsequent installments of an online book club. The presented case studies examine the processes and outcomes of a unique educational approach to Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) in a non-traditional setting. The studies represent two distinct FCS disciplines: Family …

Financial Crises, Bailouts And Monetary Policy In Open Economies, Yang Jiao

Research Collection School Of Economics

I jointly study the optimal bailout policy and monetary policy in open economies that borrow in foreign currency from international lenders. A policy dilemma emerges during financial crises. Policymakers trade off the benefit of more bailouts alleviating firms’ financial constraints against the cost of larger currency devaluation, which tightens firms’ financial constraints. I embed the optimal bailout in an otherwise standard “sudden stop” model with nominal rigidities. The model sheds light on the role of bailouts and currency mismatch in driving the exchange rate dynamics, firms’ balance sheets and economic recovery. Quantitatively, the model matches key business cycle moments. A …

Climate Challenges: Central Banks In The Hot Seat – Rethinking Monetary Policy And Educational Activity, Łukasz Kurowski

Journal of Banking and Financial Economics

Global warming poses many challenges for all economic entities. The two main challenges facing all countries are climate change mitigation and adaptation. Central banks also face difficult tasks in this context. The difficulty stems from the impact of climate change on all sectors of the economy. Central banking has to deal with the new challenges created by climate change for monetary policy, macroprudential policy, but also climate education. The aim of the article is to verify to what extent climate change is considered in the central bank’s main objective – monetary policy. Therefore, the article examines the frequency with which …

Effective Business Sustainability Strategies For Small Retail Convenience Stores, Femi F. Akingbasote

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small retail convenience store owners lack sustainability strategies, leading to the business's failure to survive for five years. Retail convenience store owners who fail to implement sustainability strategies for staying in business beyond five years can experience poor customer satisfaction and experience, high operating costs, decreased sales, and low employee morale. Grounded in the sustainability development theory, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to identify and explore the business sustainability strategies small retail convenience store owners in Maryland, U.S.A., use to stay in business beyond 5 years. The participants were four small retail convenience store owners who …

Utilizing Machine Learning To Forecast Sector-Level Equity Returns From Sector-Level Financial Ratios, Greg Kuppenheimer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Academics and equity analysts often utilize fundamental financial ratios to evaluate an industry's financial and operational performance. However, sophisticated econometric methods could be improved for estimating these ratios' importance in predicting sector-level stock return performance. To address this gap, gradient-boosted decision tree methods were applied to the WRDS sector-level financial ratio database to identify if financial ratios effectively forecast sector-level stock returns in future periods. The findings show that these ratios are predictive and economically material, both stand alone and in combination with other macroeconomic factors. Using these predictions, long and long-short sector-level portfolios were created, and most of these …

Four Essays On Banking, Bank Management, And Bank Lending, Jiarui Guo

Theses and Dissertations

This abstract synthesizes findings from four studies examining the liquidity creation, bank-borrower relationships, corporate capital structure, and managerial impact on firm performance, particularly within the context of banking and financial crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

The research first identifies the dual shocks of the pandemic—disease and policy-driven (government shutdowns)—on bank liquidity creation. I find that these shocks prompted banks to reallocate liquidity creation from assets (decreasing loans) to liabilities (increasing liquid deposits), which reduced profits and heightened risks.

In exploring bank-borrower relationships, the study highlights the role of banks in utilizing soft private information, such as the moral character of …

Three Essays On Financial Institutions And Financial Intermediation, Xinxin Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

In the first essay, I examine the trading relationship between the manager of a collateralized loan obligation (CLO) deal and the borrowers and/or lenders of the underlying portfolio of the CLO deal. I investigate how these relationships affect the structure and pricing of CLO deals. I find that a stronger relationship between a CLO manager and either borrowers or lenders of loans in the underlying portfolio leads to a smaller equity tranche in the CLO deal and a lower yield spread of the AAA tranche, on average. These results suggest that the CLO manager uses private information from trading relationships …

Driving Green Investments To Address Climate Change, Baptiste Gibrat

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

The climate crisis is no longer news, and society needs to accelerate the transition to net zero emissions. Otherwise, the consequences of climate change will become increasingly catastrophic.

This thesis develops a framework to drive green investments, which reduce society’s dependance on fossil fuels. Initially, the research provides a comprehensive examination of these investments, followed by an exploration of three strategies to enhance their adoption: leveraging financial instruments and capital markets, implementing regulatory frameworks, and harnessing the power of technologies. To integrate these elements within a comprehensive framework, the study employs market research, reviews relevant literature, and includes interviews with …

Two Essays On Corporate Finance, Yongdong Wang

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of two essays on corporate finance. In my first essay, I investigate the effect of the top management team (TMT) political heterogeneity on the CEO’s ability to implant her/his ideology onto the firm’s CSR policies. We present evidence that a CEO’s ideology can shape CSR policies only in the existence of a politically homogeneous TMT. This result is robust to the use of the propensity score matching (PSM) approach to address selection bias, the instrumental variable (IV) approach to address endogeneity, and Oster’s test to address omitted variables bias. Further analysis shows that the association between CSR …

Geographic Links And Predictable Returns, Zuben Jin, Frank Weikai Li

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Using establishment-level data of U.S. public firms, we construct a novel measure of geographic linkage between firms. We show that the returns of geography-linked firms have strong predictive power for focal firm returns and fundamentals. This effect is distinct from other cross-firm return predictability and is not easily attributable to risk-based explanations. It is more pronounced for focal firms that receive lower investor attention, are more costly to arbitrage, and during high sentiment periods. The cross-firm information spillovers and return predictability are also stronger for geographic peers with economic linkages and with positive information. Our results are broadly consistent with …

The Interaction Effects Of Fintech And Bank Lending On Growth: Evidence From The Asean Region, Tan Swee Liang

Research Collection School Of Economics

This study examined the interaction effects of traditional bank lending and emerging fintech credit on economic growth in six ASEAN economies from 2013 to 2020. Using a two-way fixed effects (FE) model and the panel-corrected standard error (PCSE) method, the study found a statistically significant and positive interaction effect between bank lending and fintech credit. Specifically, fintech credit became increasingly important in shaping economic growth as bank lending ratios exceeded a certain threshold. Countries with high bank lending ratios experienced greater GDP per capita growth when accompanied by greater fintech credit. These findings suggest that policies supporting fintech development alongside …

Digital Payments And Consumption: Evidence From The 2016 Demonetization In India, Sumit Agarwal, Pulak Ghosh, Jing Li, Tianyue Ruan

Research Collection School Of Economics

We study how consumer spending responds to digital payments, using the differential switch to digital payments across consumers induced by the sudden 2016 Indian Demonetization for identification. Usage of digital payments rose by 3.38 percentage points and monthly spending increased by 3% for an additional 10 percentage points in prior cash dependence. Spending remained elevated even when cash availability recovered. Robustness analyses show that the spending response is not driven by income shocks, credit supply, price changes, or consumers' moving to the formal market. We provide evidence that digital payments increase consumer spending due to subdued salience.

How Can Cbdcs Be Designed To Drive Financial Inclusion?, Heng Wang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As a new form of national currency, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) hold the potential to be a transformative innovation that can enhance financial inclusion. However, the realization of this potential is very much contingent on their design. The realization of the benefit is also influenced by the barriers to financial inclusion that were identified in our first blog such as financial literacy, digital divide, and complexity.

Essays On Networks And Gender Dynamics In Corporate Finance, Xiaonan Wei

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In my dissertation, I explore the effect of networks and gender dynamics on corporate finance. In my first essay, I examine the effects of personal network on insider trading decisions. Using COVID-19 as a shock to test personal network effect, I find individuals were influenced by information about COVID-19 provided by the members of their personal networks. S&P 1500 insiders whose personal networks contained higher fractions of socially connected individuals from countries affected by early stages of COVID-19 were more likely to sell shares of their firms in the period preceding the U.S. stock market decline, and they are less …

Determinan Implementasi Central Bank Digital Currency Di Indonesia, Kharisma Dwi Widodo, Bambang Juanda, Dedi Budiman Hakim

Jurnal Ekonomi dan Pembangunan Indonesia

Private digital currency is no longer limited to shadow banking issues but has also entered shadow central banking, putting Bank Indonesia to adopt the CBDC. This study aims to determine the effect of macroeconomic, accessibility, and demographic aspects on CBDC implementation, as well as the impact of publicity on changes in the behavior of economic actors in using CBDC in Indonesia. The results of the study show that GRDP, gini ratio, ICT, and bank accounts have an effect on CBDC. Publicity affects changes in the behavior of economic actors in increasing the conversion of fiat money to CBDC.