Finance - Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collection
Search Results
1 - 10 of 53
-
ItemMacroeconomic Expectations and the Size, Value, and Momentum Factors(WILEY-BLACKWELL, 2016-12-01)When examining the sources of risk associated with priced factors, the prior literature often uses macroeconomic realizations to proxy for changes in expectations. However, realizations can be biased, so instead we use changes in macroeconomic forecasts and macroeconomic news surprises. The sensitivity of common factors to macroeconomic risks is not robust, and generally economically and statistically insignificant. Sometimes the factors even hedge risk. Importantly, the weak relation between the factors and risks is not the result of low powered tests. These findings are inconsistent with the notion that the factors are priced because they proxy for the macroeconomic risks examined.
-
ItemCHANGING ORGANIZATIONAL FORM: DEMUTUALIZATION AND THE PRIVATIZATION OF COMMUNAL WEALTH - AUSTRALIAN CREDIT UNION EXPERIENCES(WILEY, 2016-12)ABSTRACT Recent decades have seen substantial demutualization of financial institutions around the world, involving the conversion of accumulated communally owned wealth into private wealth. Whether driven by a quest for a more efficient organizational structure or by wealth expropriation incentives, different methods of demutualization have different implications for wealth allocation among current members and transfers of wealth to outsiders. While credit union sectors internationally have, to date, experienced few demutualizations, there are increasing incentives for such organizational change. Three alternative demutualization strategies (share issue to members plus an external capital raising, liquidation and cash distribution to members (a quasi‐demutualization), and merger with a listed company) recently used by Australian credit unions are analysed to highlight wealth implications, survival risks for the mutual form and potential problems arising in the demutualization process.
-
ItemIndustry Expertise, Information Leakage and the Choice of M&A Advisors(WILEY-BLACKWELL, 2016-01-01)Abstract This paper examines the impacts of M&A advisors’ industry expertise on firms’ choice of advisors in mergers and acquisitions. We show that an investment bank's expertise in merger parties’ industries increases its likelihood of being chosen as an advisor, especially when the acquisition is more complex, and when a firm in M&A has less information about the merger counterparty. However, due to the concerns about information leakage to industry rivals through M&A advisors, acquirers are reluctant to share advisors with rival firms in the same industry, and they are more likely to switch to new advisors if their former advisors have advisory relationship with their industry rivals. In addition, we document that advisors with more industry expertise earn higher advisory fees and increase the likelihood of deal completion.
-
ItemSuccession financing in family firms(SPRINGER, 2013-08)Business succession is one of the primary management challenges for family firms. However, many family firms fail at this task because of financial issues. Although a vast number of studies have investigated the succession process, research thus far has failed to determine how and why family firms select particular forms of financing for succession-related expenditures. Accordingly, this study conceptually and empirically investigates succession financing. We introduce a conceptual framework that investigates the reasons behind an owner-manager’s intent to use debt for succession financing. Specifically, our model accounts for general and succession-related personal factors. However, we also include a set of firm-specific financing behavioral controls in our research. The empirical results are derived from a sample of 187 German family firms, and the results highlight financial knowledge, attitudes, succession experience, and succession planning as significant determinants of the owner-managers’ debt usage intentions. The implications and avenues for future research are discussed.
-
ItemLevel, Trend and Correlates of Mistimed and Unwanted Pregnancies among Currently Pregnant Ever Married Women in India.(Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2015)Unintended pregnancy accounts for more than 40% of the total pregnancies worldwide. An Unintended pregnancy can have serious implications on women and their families. With more than one-fourth of the children in India born out of unintended pregnancies such pregnancies are considered to be one of the major public health concerns today. The present study is aimed at determining major predictors of unintended pregnancy among currently pregnant ever-married women in India. The present study has used National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data, conducted by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, to show the trend, pattern and determinants of mistimed and unwanted pregnancies. Bivariate and multinomial logistic regression model have been used with the help of Stata 13 software. The results show that the likelihood of a mistimed pregnancy is more prevalent among young women whereas the prevalence of unwanted pregnancy is observed more among the women aged 35 years or more. The results also show that the risk of experiencing mistimed pregnancy decreases if the woman belongs to 'other' castes and has higher education. The likelihood of unwanted pregnancy decreases among married women aged 18 years and above, those women having higher education, some autonomy and access to any mode of mass communication. Knowledge of these predictors of mistimed and unwanted pregnancy will be helpful in identifying the most vulnerable group and prioritize the intervention strategies of the reproductive health programmes for the population in need.
-
ItemMalaria prevalence among pregnant women in two districts with differing endemicity in Chhattisgarh, India.(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2012-08-10)BACKGROUND: In India, malaria is not uniformly distributed. Chhattisgarh is a highly malarious state where both Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax are prevalent with a preponderance of P. falciparum. Malaria in pregnancy (MIP), especially when caused by P. falciparum, poses substantial risk to the mother and foetus by increasing the risk of foetal death, prematurity, low birth weight (LBW), and maternal anaemia. These risks vary between areas with stable and unstable transmission. The specific objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of malaria, its association with maternal and birth outcomes, and use of anti-malarial preventive measures for development of evidence based interventions to reduce the burden of MIP. METHODS: A cross-sectional study of pregnant women presenting to antenatal clinics (ANC) or delivery units (DU), or hospitalized for non-obstetric illness was conducted over 12 months in high (Bastar) and low (Rajnandgaon) transmission districts in Chhattisgarh state. Intensity of transmission was defined on the basis of slide positivity rates with a high proportion due to P. falciparum. In each district, a rural and an urban health facility was selected. RESULTS: Prevalence of peripheral parasitaemia was low: 1.3% (35/2696) among women at ANCs and 1.9% at DUs (19/1025). Peripheral parasitaemia was significantly more common in Bastar (2.8%) than in Rajnandgaon (0.1%) (p < 0.0001). On multivariate analysis of ANC participants, residence in Bastar district (stable malaria transmission) was strongly associated with peripheral parasitaemia (adjusted OR [aOR] 43.4; 95% CI, 5.6-335.2). Additional covariates associated with parasitaemia were moderate anaemia (aOR 3.7; 95% CI 1.8-7.7), fever within the past week (aOR 3.2; 95% CI 1.2-8.6), and lack of formal education (aOR 4.6; 95% CI 2.0-10.7). Similarly, analysis of DU participants revealed that moderate anaemia (aOR 2.5; 95% CI 1.1-5.4) and fever within the past week (aOR 5.8; 95% CI 2.4-13.9) were strongly associated with peripheral and/or placental parasitaemia. Malaria-related admissions were more frequent among pregnant women in Bastar, the district with greater malaria prevalence (51% vs. 11%, p < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS: Given the overall low prevalence of malaria, a strategy of enhanced anti-vector measures coupled with intermittent screening and targeted treatment during pregnancy should be considered for preventing malaria-associated morbidity in central India.
-
ItemIndirect reciprocity is sensitive to costs of information transfer.(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2013)How natural selection can promote cooperative or altruistic behavior is a fundamental question in biological and social sciences. One of the persuasive mechanisms is "indirect reciprocity," working through reputation: cooperative behavior can prevail because the behavior builds the donor's good reputation and then s/he receives some reciprocal benefits from someone else in the community. However, an important piece missed in the previous studies is that the reputation-building process requires substantial cognitive abilities such as communication skills, potentially causing a loss of biological fitness. Here, by mathematical analyses and individual-based computer simulations, we show that natural selection never favors indirect reciprocal cooperation in the presence of the cost of reputation building, regardless of the cost-to-benefit ratio of cooperation or moral assessment rules (social norms). Our results highlight the importance of considering the cost of high-level cognitive abilities in studies of the evolution of humans' and animals' social behavior.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableModeling the Evolution of Beliefs Using an Attentional Focus Mechanism(PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE, 2015-10)For making decisions in everyday life we often have first to infer the set of environmental features that are relevant for the current task. Here we investigated the computational mechanisms underlying the evolution of beliefs about the relevance of environmental features in a dynamical and noisy environment. For this purpose we designed a probabilistic Wisconsin card sorting task (WCST) with belief solicitation, in which subjects were presented with stimuli composed of multiple visual features. At each moment in time a particular feature was relevant for obtaining reward, and participants had to infer which feature was relevant and report their beliefs accordingly. To test the hypothesis that attentional focus modulates the belief update process, we derived and fitted several probabilistic and non-probabilistic behavioral models, which either incorporate a dynamical model of attentional focus, in the form of a hierarchical winner-take-all neuronal network, or a diffusive model, without attention-like features. We used Bayesian model selection to identify the most likely generative model of subjects' behavior and found that attention-like features in the behavioral model are essential for explaining subjects' responses. Furthermore, we demonstrate a method for integrating both connectionist and Bayesian models of decision making within a single framework that allowed us to infer hidden belief processes of human subjects.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailableThe impact of disappointment in decision making: inter-individual differences and electrical neuroimaging(FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2011-01-06)Disappointment, the emotion experienced when faced to reward prediction errors (RPEs), considerably impacts decision making (DM). Individuals tend to modify their behavior in an often unpredictable way just to avoid experiencing negative emotions. Despite its importance, disappointment remains much less studied than regret and its impact on upcoming decisions largely unexplored. Here, we adapted the Trust Game to effectively elicit, quantify, and isolate disappointment by relying on the formal definition provided by Bell's in economics. We evaluated the effects of experienced disappointment and elation on future cooperation and trust as well as the rationality and utility of the different behavioral and neural mechanisms used to cope with disappointment. All participants in our game trusted less and particularly expected less from unknown opponents as a result of disappointing outcomes in the previous trial but not necessarily after elation indicating that behavioral consequences of positive and negative RPEs are not the same. A large variance in the tolerance to disappointment was observed across subjects, with some participants needing only a small disappointment to impulsively bias their subsequent decisions. As revealed by high-density EEG recordings the most tolerant individuals - who thought twice before making a decision and earned more money - relied on different neural generators to contend with neutral and unexpected outcomes. This study thus provides some support to the idea that different neural systems underlie reflexive and reflective decisions within the same individuals as predicted by the dual-system theory of social judgment and DM.
-
ItemNo Preview AvailablePositive temporal dependence of the biological clock implies hyperbolic discounting(FRONTIERS RESEARCH FOUNDATION, 2011)Temporal preferences of animals and humans often exhibit inconsistencies, whereby an earlier, smaller reward may be preferred when it occurs immediately but not when it is delayed. Such choices reflect hyperbolic discounting of future rewards, rather than the exponential discounting required for temporal consistency. Simultaneously, however, evidence has emerged that suggests that animals and humans have an internal representation of time that often differs from the calendar time used in detection of temporal inconsistencies. Here, we prove that temporal inconsistencies emerge if fixed durations in calendar time are experienced as positively related (positive quadrant dependent). Hence, what are time-consistent choices within the time framework of the decision maker appear as time-inconsistent to an outsider who analyzes choices in calendar time. As the biological clock becomes more variable, the fit of the hyperbolic discounting model improves. A recent alternative explanation for temporal choice inconsistencies builds on persistent under-estimation of the length of distant time intervals. By increasing the expected speed of our stochastic biological clock for time farther into the future, we can emulate this explanation. Ours is therefore an encompassing theoretical framework that predicts context-dependent degrees of intertemporal choice inconsistencies, to the extent that context can generate changes in autocorrelation, variability, and expected speed of the biological clock. Our finding should lead to novel experiments that will clarify the role of time perception in impulsivity, with critical implications for, among others, our understanding of aging, drug abuse, and pathological gambling.