Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Convergence Rate Analysis for the Continuous-Time Markov Chain Approximation of Occupation Time Derivatives and Asian Option Greeks

This paper establishes the second-order convergence rates of the continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) approximation method for pricing continuously monitored occupation time derivatives (step options, conditional Asian options) and arithmetic Asian options and their Greeks. We fill the gap in the current literature on the analysis of CTMC approximation errors for pricing Asian options by not only rigorously proving the exact second order convergence rate but also developing corresponding error and convergence analysis for the Greeks through the novel use of pathwise method and Malliavin calculus techniques. We further extend the scope of the analysis of the CTMC approximation method to the case of general occupation time derivatives (e.g. step options) and the recently introduced conditional Asian options, and then propose a novel CTMC scheme for their valuation. We carry out a detailed error and convergence analysis of the algorithms and numerical experiments substantiate the theoretical findings.
Stock-Market Disruptions and Corporate Disclosure Policies

Abstract We examine managers’' disclosure decisions in response to non-fundamental price shocks. Using mutual fund fire sales as a source of market disruption, we show some firms respond by issuing earnings guidance. Others, especially firms with weaker performance and more short-term-oriented investors, engage in accrual-based earnings management. To identify the efficacy of firm disclosure choices, we examine passage of Sarbanes-Oxley and Regulation Fair Disclosure and show that they increased reliance on guidance rather than earnings management. The shift is associated with faster post-fire-sales price recovery, suggesting enhancing information disclosure rather than manipulation is effective in mitigating the effect of market disruptions.
Can the Liquid Live Micro-Organisms System, a Commercial Probiotic, Affect Sediment, Water Quality, and Koi Carp Production in Fish Hatchery Ponds?

Abstract Sediment and turbidity can reduce pond and effluent water quality and fish production. We investigated the efficacy of a commercial bacterial product, Liquid Live Micro-Organisms (LLMO) System, in reducing sediment accumulation and improving water quality and fish production in hatchery ponds for 4.5 months. Four plastic-lined ponds received LLMO treatment at a rate of 1 L per 63,230 L of pond water at 2-week intervals throughout the study and additional twice-weekly applications during the last 6 weeks of the study. Another four ponds were untreated and served as the control. All ponds were cleaned of bottom sediments, supplied with plastic containers (33–34 containers/ha) to collect sediment samples, filled with water, and managed to control Prymnesium parvum ichthyotoxicity. Koi (a variant of the common carp Cyprinus carpio) were stocked into ponds as fry and were fed a commercial diet. Turbidity, Secchi disk visibility, chlorophyll a, pH, ammonia-nitrogen, suspended solids, carbonaceous bioch.
Symmetry vs. Asymmetry, Stochastic Dominance Optimization, and The Impact on Capital Asset Pricing

This paper models the risk tradeoff between symmetry and asymmetry in the distribution of asset return as a core consideration for rational investor decision making under uncertainty and presents a closed-form solution for determining the optimal market portfolio using a classic utility maximization framework and stochastic dominance optimization. The optimization yields a portfolio separation for both risk-averse investors as well as those who also possess a preference for upside gains and an aversion to downside losses. In equilibrium, in addition to requiring compensation for bearing volatility risk – which is symmetrical in gains and losses – investors also require additional compensation for bearing the systematic risk associated with distributional asymmetries. The model serves as an expansion of CAPM and, as is demonstrated both theoretically and empirically, solves the long-lasting puzzle of the beta anomaly.
LOW SUMMER TEMPERATURES CAUSE JUVENILE ATLANTIC SALMON TO BECOME NOCTURNAL

The die1 and seasonal activity patterns of salmonids are predominantly governed by the annual changes in photoperiod and temperature. In winter salmonids become increasingly nocturnal, hiding in refuges by day but emerging to feed at night. This behaviour may be linked to either one of the controlling influences mentioned above or to an inherent annual rhythm. Here we show that the previously described switch by Altantic salmon (Salmo salar L.) from predominantly diurnal to nocturnal activity in winter also occurs at other times of the year in response to low, "winter" temperatures; this is demonstrated both in laboratory experiments and by field observations in glacial rivers. This indicates that there is no underlying inherent annual rhythm to this behaviour nor any photoperiodic influence. Furthermore, in the laboratory experiment this temperature-dependent shift to nocturnalism was explained by a suppression of daytime activity rather than an increase in activity at night.
The Impact of Long Term Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on Child Obesity

In March of 2009 participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) reached an all time high of 40.2 million persons. A significant body of research has emerged suggesting that participation in the SNAP increases the probability of being obese for adult women, and has little effect on obesity for adult men; however the evidence on the effect of SNAP participation on child obesity is much more tenuous. This paper examines the effect of long-term SNAP participation on the Body Mass Index (BMI) percentile, and probability of being overweight or obese for children ages 5 through 18 using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Children and Young Adults, and an instrumental variables identification strategy that exploits exogenous variation in state-level program parameters, as well as state and federal expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). SNAP participation is found to significantly reduce BMI percentile, and the probability of being overweight or obese, for both boys and girls ages 5 through 11 and boys ages 12 through 18. For girls ages 12 through 18, SNAP participation appears to have no significant effect on their BMI percentile or their probability of being overweight or obese.
The Scope and Aims of Applied Entomology

The class Insecta has existed from early Palaeozoic times, developing through the course of the ages into a numerical aggregate of species unknown and unparalleled in any other group of the animal kingdom. At the present day, there is every reason to believe that insect life is more abundant and luxurious than during any pre-existing epoch. With their remarkable adaptations to almost every conceivable environment, their still lengthier persistence on our planet is a matter of the greatest probability. Dr Holland has predicted in a word-picture how the class is destined to be the last to survive when all other forms of animal life have died out. He writes: “When the moon shall have faded from the sky and the sun shall shine at noonday a dull cherry red, and the seas shall be frozen over and the ice-cap shall have crept downward to the equator from either pole, and no keel shall cut the waters, nor wheels turn in the mills, when all cities shall have long been dead and crumbled into dust, and all life shall be on the last verge of extinction on this globe, then, on a bit of lichen, growing on the bald rocks beside the eternal snows of Panama, shall be seated a tiny insect, preening its antennae in the glow of the worn-out sun, representing the sole survival of animal life on this, our earth,—a melancholy ‘bug’. "
The hen's egg: Relationships of seven characteristics of the strain of hen to the incidence of cracks and other shell defects

1. Multiple regression and path‐coefficient analysis show that the factors with greatest influence on the incidence of cracks and other shell defects in three random‐sample tests of 47 entries of 28 strains were, in descending order, mean shell colour, mean shell thickness, mean egg production and mean egg weight, and that median age at maturity, mean body weight at 140 d and mean weight increase between 140 and 500 d had no effect. 2. Breeders who wish to exercise indirect selection for low crack incidence should consider selecting for dark shell colour rather than high shell thickness.
Species resistance and community response to wind disturbance regimes in northern temperate forests

1 Severe winds are the predominant cause of natural disturbance in temperate forests of north‐eastern and north‐central North America. Conceptual models of the effects of wind disturbance have traditionally focused on the impacts of catastrophic disturbances and have painted a simple picture of how disturbance acts to maintain tree species diversity. These models ignore variation among species characteristics that could have important consequences for both resistance to and recovery from disturbance. 2 We integrated an empirically parameterized, mechanistic model of windstorm mortality (WINDSTORM) and a seed‐mass‐based dispersal and recruitment model into a spatially explicit, individual tree model of forest dynamics (SORTIE) in order to create simulated long‐term ‘experiments’ designed to explore the sensitivity of forest composition and structure to species‐specific resistance to and recovery from disturbance. 3 We found that species‐specific variation in resistance to wind mortality interacted strongly with: (i) shade tolerance characteristics, (ii) the medium‐term history of disturbances, (iii) the long‐term average severity of the disturbance regime and (iv) seedbed substrate dynamics to influence tree population dynamics and successional trajectories. 4 We also examined how local and long‐distance dispersal affect response to wind disturbance. Ignoring differences among local dispersal characteristics overestimates the importance of dispersal‐limited species. Our results show that long‐distance immigration maintains species coexistence only if the immigration rate is very high relative to local dispersal. Despite this, stand‐scale models that ignore long‐distance dispersal can underestimate population dynamics of dispersal‐limited species. 5 Our results indicate that landscape‐scale heterogeneity in structure and species composition in these forests is facilitated by synergisms between the stochastic nature of wind disturbance and complex interactions between species traits that govern: (i) resistance to disturbance, (ii) local dispersal and seedling establishment and (iii) competitive (i.e. growth/survival) traits that do not adhere to strict tradeoffs. 6 We conclude that wind disturbance has much more complex and variable effects on long‐term dynamics of forest structure and composition than suggested by previous models. In particular, non‐catastrophic disturbances can generate important variation in forest dynamics that can either lead to dominance by a single or small number of species, or facilitate species coexistence.
The Reversal Strategy: A Study across all Emerging Markets

The emerging markets being volatile and illiquid provides ideal setting for the success of reversal strategy. Surprising only 8 emerging markets have significant reversals out of 21 markets being analyzed. For markets in which reversal is present, it is linked with firm size and illiquidity, but the strongest association of reversal is with higher volatility of the stocks. Overall, reversal profits, once present cannot be explained by commonly known market-based risks factors. We also analyzed the performance of conditional reversal strategies which are workable in the US, but we do not find any conclusive evidence in case of emerging markets. JEL Classification: G11, G12
Self-Interest and Equity Concerns: A Behavioural Allocation Rule for Operational Problems

In many economic situations, individuals with different bargaining power must agree on how to divide a given resource. For instance, in the dictator game the proposer has all the bargaining power. In spite of it, the majority of controlled experiments show that she shares an important amount of the resource with the receiver. In the present paper I consider how behavioural and psychological internal conflicting aspects, such as self-interest and equity concerns, determine the split of the resource. The individual allocation proposals are aggregated in terms of altruism and value for the resource under dispute to obtain a single allocation. The resulting allocation rule is generalized to the <i>n</i>-individuals case through efficiency and consistency. Finally, I show that it satisfies a set of desirable properties. The obtained results are of practical interest for a number of situations, such as river sharing problems, sequential allocation and rationing problems.
The Triple Difference Estimator

Triple difference has become a widely used estimator in empirical work. A close reading of articles in top economics journals reveals that the use of the estimator to a large extent rests on intuition. The identifying assumptions are neither formally derived nor generally agreed on. We give a complete presentation of the triple difference estimator, and show that even though the estimator can be computed as the difference between two difference-in-differences estimators, it does not require two parallel trend assumptions to have a causal interpretation. The reason is that the difference between two biased difference-in-differences estimators will be unbiased as long as the bias is the same in both estimators. This requires only one parallel trend assumption to hold.
Adding Geography to the New Economic Geography

For reasons of analytical tractability, new economic geography (NEG) models treat geography in a very simple way: attention is either confined to a simple 2-region or to an equidistant multi-region world. As a result, the main predictions regarding the impact of e.g. diminishing trade costs are based on these simple models. When doing empirical or policy work these simplifying assumptions become problematic and it may very well be that the conclusions from the simple models do not carry over to the heterogeneous geographical setting faced by the empirical researcher or policy maker. This paper tries to fill this gap by adding more realistic geography structures to the Puga (1999) model that encompasses several benchmark NEG models. By using extensive simulations we show that many, although not all, conclusions from the simple models do carry over to our multi-region setting with more realistic geography structures. Given these results, we then simulate the impact of increased EU integration on the spatial distribution of regional economic activity for a sample of 194-NUTSII regions and find that further integration will most likely be accompanied by higher levels of agglomeration.
Taxes, Technology Transfer, and the R&D Activities of Multinational Firms

Multinational firms that use domestic technologies in foreign locations are required to pay royalties from foreign users to domestic owners. Foreign governments often tax these royalty payments. High royalty tax rates raise the cost of imported technologies. This paper examines the effect of royalty taxes on the local R&D intensities for foreign affiliates of multinational corporations, looking both at foreign-owned affiliates in the United States and at American-owned affiliates in other countries. The results indicate that higher royalty taxes are associated with greater R&D intensity on the part of affiliates, suggesting that local R&D is a substitute for imported technology.
Do Mutual Funds and ETFs Affect the Commonality in Liquidity of Corporate Bonds?

The paper studies the effect of growing mutual fund and ETF ownership on the commonality in liquidity of underlying bonds. Unpredictable liquidity needs of funds may give rise to correlated trading across underlying illiquid bonds. I document that there is a positive and significant relationship between ETF ownership and liquidity commonality of investment-grade bonds suggesting that ETFs reduce the possibility to diversify liquidity risk. In contrast, and unlike for equities, mutual fund ownership does not affect the co-movement in liquidity of bonds. I show that three channels explain the differential impact of ETFs and mutual funds: flow-driven correlated trading, different investor clienteles, and ETF arbitrage activity.
Factors Affecting Public Service Motivation: A Comparative Analysis of Public & Private Sector Employees

This study examined public service motivation (PSM) in public sector and private sector organizations, and various factors that were found to influence PSM. Furthermore, we also analyzed the effect of PSM on employees’ job satisfaction (JSA) for both sectors. The factors identified were rewards, working relations, career growth (CGA), Job Security (JSE) and workplace attributes (WPA). Data was collected from close ended likert scale type questionnaire. A sample of 220 professionals from various fields of private sector and 200 government sector employees were used to test a partial mediation model using structural equation modeling. Independent Samples T-test was done to compare the means of variables in public and sectors. Findings showed that there was no significant difference among rewards, PSM, JSE and working relations of public and private sector employees. However, there was a significant difference between JSA, WPA and CGA. The findings also suggested that Rewards (whether intrinsic or extrinsic) and Workplace attributes had no significant impact on the job satisfaction and public service motivation of public and private sector employees, whereas working relations, career growth opportunities and job security play a vital role in public service motivation and job satisfaction level of employees as these have significant impact to job satisfaction, with PSM as a mediating factor. These results have implications for managers who are interested in improving Human Resource Practices in Public Sector Organizations and private sector organizations. As investments in HPHRPs are positively associated with PSM and desirable employee outcomes, managers should endeavor to ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to implement HR practices.
Determinants of Financial Structure and Dividend Distribution Policy: Study of Tunisian No Financial Listed Companies

On the basis of a sample of Tunisian non-financial listed companies between 2001-2014, following the multiple regression technique, our results allow us to show that the determinants of the financial structure can have a negative relationship proxies (the level of debt) or positive proxies (the profitability of the firm) with the dividend distribution policy. Admittedly, our results are not in line with our research assumptions and do not highlight the negative effect of the growth opportunity and the size of the company on the level of dividend distribution.
STYLE MORPH RATIOS IN TRISTYLOUS DECODON VERTICILLATUS (LYTHRACEAE): SELECTION VS. HISTORICAL CONTINGENCY'

Tristylous plant populations should exhibit equal frequencies of the three style morphs at equilibrium. In contrast, New England and central Ontario populations of Decodon verticillatus (Lythraceae) show a marked deficiency of the mid-styled (M) morph. This pattern was also evident in an independent sample of 30 populations from eastern Ontario; all nine cases of morph loss involved the M morph, and this morph also occurred at low frequencies, especially in large trimorphic populations. The hypothesis that a fitness disadvantage to the M morph accounts for its low frequency was not supported by data from a series of field and glasshouse experiments. Measures of reproductive success from two populations showed no disadvantage to the M morph, but revealed substantially higher seed set in the mid- (M) and short-styled (S) morphs than in the long-styled (L) morph. A pollen addition experiment showed that low seed set in the L morph can only partly be explained by reduced pollen receipt. Comparison of morph frequencies between adult plants and their open-pollinated progeny in three populations failed to reveal any morph-specific fitness differences. Analysis of growth and flowering of open-pollinated progeny from three populations in a 2-yr glasshouse experiment revealed differences among morphs for some parameters in some populations, but no consistent patterns were evident. The deficiency of the M morph may have resulted from an historical accident during post-glacial colo- nization of parts of the northern range. Computer calculations examining the return of morph frequencies to equilibrium after major perturbations indicated that populations of long-lived clonal species like D. verticillatus may preserve skewed morph ratios for > 10 000 yr. Moreover, the distribution of fossil seeds indicates that this species has occurred in its post-glacial range in southern Ontario for only ;5000 yr. It is important to distinguish between ecological and evolutionary time scales when testing selective interpretations of microevolutionary patterns involving clonal taxa in glaciated regions.
Genetics of Body Size and Related Characters. I. Selecting Small and Large Races of the Laboratory Mouse

A large population was made up by hybridizations of several common laboratory strains of mice which were in no way remarkable as to their body size. From one segregating foundation stock eight successive generations of selections for body size have produced: (1) a race of small body size; and (2) an exceptionally large race, whose individuals average a fourth larger at birth and twice the weight of the small race at 60 days of age. Size was judged from the 60-day weight, and selections were based on progeny tests, sib likeness and individual phenotype. The races diverge each generation, but at a lessening rate. Their size distributions show little or no overlap, and the present difference between the races exceeds the mean weight of the small race. Less grams of body weight were lost by the minus selections than were gained by equal effort at plus selection; and less grams were gained or lost by females than by males. When measurements are transformed to a percentage or a logarithmic scale the weight gains and losses become approximately equal in both sexes and races. These data agree with the view that size genes or modifiers multiply each other's effects (that is, act geometrically), and do not simply add to or subtract from the body weight some definite and constant number of grams.