Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Firm‐Level Investment Spikes and Aggregate Investment Over the Great Recession

Firm-level investment paths are commonly characterised by periods of low or zero investment punctuated by large investment ‘spikes’. We document that such spikes are important for understanding ? rm and aggregate level investment in the UK. We show that annual variation in aggregate investment is driven by variation in the number of ? rms undertaking investment spikes rather than in the size of spikes or in investment outside of spikes. Our main contribution is to set out and estimate a ? rm-level model of the timing of investment spikes that: (i) incorporates measures of macroeconomic conditions and can be used to replicate movements in aggregate investment; (ii) incorporates a role for ? rm capital structure, which we demonstrate explains part of ? rms’ heterogeneous investment responses to the Great Recession. We ? nd an important role for low demand growth in depressing investment in the recession and for ongoing uncertainty in prolonging investment weakness in later years. The minority of ? rms that persistently operate with high debt levels were signi? cantly less likely to undertake an investment spike after the recession, which is consistent with them having been more exposed to ? nancial distress.
Rapid Change in the Use of Antiretroviral Agents and Improvement in a Population of HIV-Infected Patients: France, 1995 to 1997

PURPOSE: To describe the recent evolution of antiretroviral prescriptions and to look for clinical and biological changes among a population of HIV-infected patients. SUBJECTS: Patients received follow-up in the hospital-based information system of the Groupe d'Epidemiologie Clinique du SIDA en Aquitaine (GECSA), Southwestern France, from 1995 to 1997. METHODS: Quarterly evolution of the prescriptions of antiretroviral treatments and of the population clinical and biological indicators were studied in this observational survey of computerized records obtained after each hospital contact. RESULTS: Overall numbers of patients who received follow-up and of hospital contacts remained stable. The proportion of untreated patients decreased from 38.5% to 10.5%. Monotherapies were progressively abandoned. Double combination therapies with two nucleoside analogues were used for 55% of the patients by early 1996 and then decreased, whereas triple combination therapies with one protease inhibitor (PI) rapidly increased to comprise up to 40% of the prescriptions in 1997. PIs were prescribed earlier and earlier in the course of HIV infection. Overall incidence of AIDS diagnoses and mortality rate decreased by 18% and 22%, respectively, in the first 9 months of use of PIs compared with the preceding 9 months, and by 47% and 56%, respectively, in the following 9 months (p<.001). The number of hospitalizations and the proportion of patients with a CD4 cell count <200/mm3 decreased. AIDS cases diagnosed after introduction of PIs had rarely been treated with PIs. CONCLUSION: Over this 3-year period, physicians prescribed antiretroviral treatments more and more frequently, and triple combination therapy with PI is now common practice in France. Patients clinical and biological patterns have improved 18 months after the introduction of PIs.
Discretionary loan loss provision behavior in the US banking industry

Earnings management can be opportunistic and add noise to earnings, or informative about a firm’s underlying economic performance and add information to financial reports. Our study examines earnings management in banks with different levels of information asymmetry. We compare earnings management between public and private banks by using discretionary loan loss provisions (DLLPs) as a proxy. We use a dataset of US public and private banks from 1986:Q1 to 2013:Q4 and provide evidence of greater earnings management in public banks than private banks. We also examine the conditions that motivate managers to engage in earnings management. DLLPs are used to send private information to investors, consistent with our signaling hypothesis. We also find evidence that capital requirements alter DLLPs, consistent with our capital management hypothesis. Banks with relatively low (high) earnings tend to decrease (increase) their earnings through manipulation of DLLPs, inconsistent with our income-smoothing hypothesis. This study extends the current literature on earnings management between public and private banks. Our discussion provides a better understanding of the determinants of bank earnings management.
Prospect Theory, Constant Relevant Risk Aversion, and the Investment Horizon

Prospect Theory (PT) and Constant Relative Risk Aversion (CRRA) have clear-cut implications for the optimal asset allocation between stocks and the risk-free asset as a function of the investment horizon. While CRRA preferences imply that the allocation should be independent of the horizon, we show that PT implies a dramatic and discontinuous “jump” to the maximal possible allocation to stocks as the horizon increases. We experimentally test these predictions at the individual level. We find very little support for PT with at most 6% of the choices supporting it. We find much stronger support for CRRA with 32%-44% of the choices conforming to it. Moreover, the aggregate allocation, which is relevant for asset pricing, conforms to CRRA. These findings provide some justification for economic models employing CRRA preferences, and suggest that the equity premium puzzle is yet to be solved.
Not lean by default: Exploring practices, their design, and underlying mechanisms driving performance

Nick Ziengs Lean is niet vanzelfsprekend: een verkenning van productiepraktijken, het ontwerp en de onderliggende mechanismen die bedrijfsprestaties bepalen Lean wordt door veel productiebedrijven gebruikt om de kwaliteit te verbeteren doorlooptijden te verkorten en kosten te verlagen. In de literatuur worden er veel tegenstrijdige implicaties van het implementeren van lean productiepraktijken beschreven. Productiebedrijven implementeren verschillende productiepraktijken en ook nog vaak op verschillende manieren. Het is van belang om te bestuderen hoe deze productiepraktijken gezamenlijk de bedrijfsprestaties beinvloeden en om de onderliggende mechanismen verantwoordelijk voor deze prestaties bloot te leggen. De studies, gedocumenteerd in dit proefschrift, behandelen deze twee kwesties. De eerste studie adresseert de relatie tussen kwaliteitsmanagementpraktijken en bedrijfsprestaties en toont, met behulp van meta-analyse en structurele vergelijkingsmodellen, dat verschillende kwaliteitsmanagementpraktijken gezamenlijk in plaats van onafhankelijk, van invloed zijn op de bedrijfsprestaties. De overige twee studies hebben betrekking op het ontwerp van een specifieke lean productiepraktijk, namelijk pull-productie. Het tweede onderzoek toont, met behulp van een simulatiestudie, hoe het ontwerp van pull-productiesystemen een verbeterde doorlooptijdprestatie mogelijk maakt door de verdeling van de werklast op de werkvloer te bevorderen. Het derde onderzoek toont, met behulp van een experiment, hoe het ontwerp van pull-productiesystemen van invloed is op de motivatie van individuen werkzaam binnen het productiesysteem. Samen tonen deze studies aan hoe belangrijk het is om lean productiepraktijken, hun ontwerp en de onderliggende mechanismen te bestuderen. Deze studies geven het belang aan van een holistische kijk waar het aanpassen van lean productiepraktijken centraal staat.
Inventory, Fixed Capital, and the Cross-Section of Corporate Investment

I show that firms' ability to adjust inventories in response to productivity shocks has important implications for the interpretation of the widely documented investment-cash flow sensitivities. The inventory adjustment is sufficient for firms to capture small variations in productivity, but when productivity shock is relatively large, limited substitutability between the factors of production may call for fixed-capital investment. Hence, firms with lower substitutability are more likely to invest in both factors together and have a larger sensitivity of capital investment to cash flow. In a dynamic investment model where financing is frictionless and firms optimize over fixed capital and inventories, I demonstrate that the substitutability channel can generate a wide dispersion in cash flow sensitivities. Moreover, incorporating inventory into a firm's investment decision helps explain the declining patterns in cash flow sensitivities over the past decades. Empirical evidence confirms the model’s predictions.
Ethical dilemmas as professional challenge : case study on management in reception centers in Finland

This study examined what kinds of ethical dilemmas managers working in reception centers in Finland have encountered as well as what kinds of strategies they applied in ethically challenging situations, and finally, what ethical dimensions the strategies included. This specific topic has not been investigated before, thus, this study aimed to theoretically and empirically examine it. Theoretical framework bases on Geva’s (2006) typology of ethical dilemmas, Jones’ (1991) issuecontingent model of moral intensity, and Rahim & Bonoma’s (1979) model of the styles of handling interpersonal conflict. The study is qualitative in nature, and was conducted by interviewing ten (10) managers working in reception centers in Finland. Interviews were semi-structured thematic interviews where a critical incident technique had a vital role (Flanagan, 1954). The results revealed that most of the interviewed managers encountered ethical dilemmas that were related to termination of reception services, as only one manager’s ethical dilemma was related to termination of employment relationship. One manager had not encountered any ethical dilemmas, thus, termination of reception services had evoked some kind of ethical pondering. Moral intensity was found to be influencing ethical evaluation and ethical decision making. Furthermore, most of the managers did not seem to struggle with interpersonal ethical conflicts, but rather with general policies against governmental institutions. Managers’ ethical decision making revealed four applied strategies: obliging, compromising, principled, and teaching. Furthermore, the applied strategies included ethical features from act and rule deontology and act utilitarianism, consequentialism, as well as from virtue ethics and ethics of care. Lastly, the compromising strategy seemed to be applied by most of the managers.
Relationship Trading in Over‐the‐Counter Markets

We examine the network of trading relationships between insurers and dealers in the over-the-counter (OTC) corporate bond market. Regulatory data show that one-third of insurers use a single dealer, whereas other insurers have large dealer networks. Execution prices are nonmonotone in network size, initially declining with more dealers but increasing once networks exceed 20 dealers. A model of decentralized trade in which insurers trade off the benefits of repeat business and faster execution quantitatively fits the distribution of insurers’ network size and explains the price–network size relationship. Counterfactual analysis shows that regulations to unbundle trade and nontrade services can decrease welfare. INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE VITAL FOR risk sharing: In exchange for premium payments, they compensate for loss, damage, injury, treatment, or hardship. To provide this coverage, insurance companies invest in a variety of financial assets. However, corporate bonds dominate their investment portfolios, accounting for almost 70% of their investments with a total value close to ∗Terrence Hendershott is with the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California. Dan Li is with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Dmitry Livdan is with the Walter A. Haas School of Business, University of California. Norman Schürhoff is with the Faculty of Business and Economics and Swiss Finance Institute, University of Lausanne. He is also a Research Fellow of the CEPR. Hendershott provides expert witness services to a variety of clients. He gratefully acknowledges support from the Norwegian Finance Initiative. Li and Livdan have no conflict of interest to disclose. Schürhoff gratefully acknowledges research support from the Swiss Finance Institute and the Swiss National Science Foundation under Sinergia project CRSII1_154445/1 “The Empirics of Financial Stability” and has no conflict of interest to disclose. We thank Philip Bond; the Editor; an associate editor; two anonymous referees; Darrell Duffie; Jerôme Dugast; Burton Hollifield; Haoxiang Zhu; and seminar audiences at California Polytechnic University, Carnegie Mellon University, FED Board, Higher School of Economics Moscow, IDC Herzliya, Imperial College, Johns Hopkins University, Michigan State University, National Bank of Belgium, NY FED, Rice University, Texas A&M University, University of British Columbia, University of Houston, University of Illinois-Chicago, University of Oklahoma, University of Piraeus, University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Toronto, University of Victoria, WU Vienna, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance, 2015 Toulouse Trading and Post-Trading Conference, 2016 AFA, 2016 NBER AP Meeting, 2016 SFI Research Day, 12th Annual Central Bank of France Workshop on the Microstructure of Financial Markets, 2016 LAEF Conference on OTC Markets, 2017 13th Csef-Igier Symposium on Economics and Institutions, and 2017 OTC Markets and their Reform Conference in Rigi for valuable comments and feedback. DOI: 10.1111/jofi.12864 C © 2019 the American Finance Association
Структура занятости сельского населения в неформальном секторе

The study presented in this article — which is a study of rural employment in the informal economy — relies on data from the following surveys of households and individuals — “Comprehensive monitoring of the population’s living conditions” and “Selective monitoring of income and participation in social programs”, both carried out by Rosstat in 2011–2015 and commissioned by the Russian government. Rural residents ages 16 and up were interviewed in every region of the 9 Federal districts, including the Crimean Federal district. It is revealed that the transition to a market economy during the 1990’s was accompanied by increasing unemployment and poverty, transformations in the labor market, and the emergence of various forms of self-employment. A decrease in the level of rural inhabitants employed in farming, together with an increase in other fields of the agro-industrial complex (AIC), lead to sectoral mobility (relocation), the transformation of rural social structure, and the development of an informal sector, one third of those employed in which are rural residents. Employment in the informal economy is quite a risky endeavor, which in many ways makes the agrarian labor market unstable as a market economy institution. However, despite the informal sector being characterized by a primitive level of technology, low capital-intensity, as well as low levels of human capital, nevertheless, it compensates the expenses of Russian village social development by way of absorbing labor resources, which, had they ended up outside of this sector, might have stayed out of business.
Real-world costs of ischemic stroke by discharge status

Abstract Objective: The objective of this study was to estimate the acute healthcare costs of ischemic stroke during hospitalization and the quarterly all-cause healthcare costs for the first year after discharge by discharge status. Methods: Adult patients with a hospitalization with a diagnosis of ischemic stroke (ICD-9-CM: 434.xx or 436.xx) between 1 January 2006 and 31 March 2015 were identified from a large US commercial claims database. Patients were classified into three cohorts based on their discharge status from the first stroke hospitalization, i.e. dead at discharge, discharged with disability, or discharged without disability. Third-party (medical and pharmacy) and out-of-pocket costs were adjusted to 2015 USD. Results: A total of 7919 patients dead at discharge, 45,695 patients discharged with disability, and 153,778 patients discharged without disability were included in this analysis. The overall average age was 59.7 years and 52.3% were male. During hospitalization, mean total costs (third-party and out-of-pocket) were $68,370 for patients dead at discharge, $73,903 for patients discharged with disability, and $24,448 for patients discharged without disability (p < .001 for each pairwise comparison); mean third-party costs were $63,605 for patients dead at discharge, $67,861 for patients discharged with disability and $19,267 for patients discharged without disability (p < .001 for each pairwise comparison). During the first year after discharge, mean total costs for patients discharged with disability vs. without disability were $46,850 vs. $30,132 (p < .001). Mean third-party costs for patients discharged with disability vs. without disability were $19,116 vs. $10,976 during the first quarter after discharge, $10,236 vs. $6926 during the second quarter, $8241 vs. $5810 during the third quarter, and $6875 vs. $5292 during the fourth quarter (p < .001 for each quarter). Conclusion: The results demonstrated the high economic burden of ischemic stroke, especially among patients discharged with disability with the highest costs incurred during the inpatient stays.
NAWRU Estimation Using Structural Labour Market Indicators

The use of unobserved component models to estimate the NAWRU has been strongly criticized due to some excessive pro-cyclicality at the sample end, especially in the neighbourhood of turning points. To address this criticism, the European Commission now uses a model-based approach where the information set is augmented with a structural indicator of the labour market to which the NAWRU is supposed to converge in a certain number of years. The resulting NAWRU estimates mixes information about the business cycle and the labour market characteristics. The application to the EU Member States shows that besides moderating pro-cyclicality, this approach also reduces the first revision to the one- and two-year-ahead forecasts of the NAWRU in four-fifth of the countries considered.
The prevalence of hypertension in Haiti : A retrospective study

Abstract The purpose of this study was to explore the prevalence of hypertension in Haiti andto describe regional characteristics, and thus to speculate Haitian speci c regional riskfactors. This is a descriptive and comparative study. Subjects were 145 male/femaleHaitians, who aged between 30 and 59 and have lived in rural areas, had their hyper-tension indicators being screened. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, t-testand ANOVA. More than four fth of the subjects (82.8%) showed pre-hypertensive ormoderate to severe hypertensive condition. 65.5% of the total had abnormal pulse pres-sure (PP50) and 13.8% of the sample showed tachycardia (Heart Rate100). FemaleHaitian tended to have higher diastolic blood pressure and faster heart rate than maleHaitian. The residents who lived in Part 5-1 area with less accessibility to drinking wa-ter tended to have higher systolic and diastolic pressure. Hydration status of Haitianswas highly considered as an a ecting factor on the distribution of hypertension asevidenced by di erent level of accessibility to drinking water.Keywords: Dehydration, hypertension, Haitian, tachycardia.
Isolation, Immunophenotyping and Lymphocyte Suppressive Properties of Equine Cord Blood-Derived Mesenchymal Stromal Cells

Isolation, immunophenotyping and lymphocyte suppressive properties of equine cord bloodderived mesenchymal stromal cells Laurence Tessier Advisor: University of Guelph, 2013 Professor T. G. Koch Multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) have attracted interest for their potential in allogeneic cytotherapy, partly due to their ability to secrete immunosuppressive factors. However, development of efficacious and reproducible therapies is hampered by a knowledge-gap in equine MSC characterization. I hypothesized that equine MSC can be consistently isolated from cord blood, have unique and reproducible marker expression, which includes cytoplasmic Toll-like receptor (TLR) 3 and TLR4, and in vitro suppress lymphoproliferation. I aimed to establish the immunophenotype of cord blood-derived(CB)-MSC before and after cryopreservation and confirm their ability to suppress in vitro lymphoproliferation. Cultured CB-MSC expressed CD29, CD44, CD90, and not MHC I, MHC II, CD4, CD8, CD11a/18, and CD73 before and after cryopreservation. CB-MSC suppressed in vitro lymphoproliferation and constitutively expressed TLR4. These findings suggest anti-inflammatory properties of CB-MSC. Lack of MHC I expression suggests reduced risk of allorejection. The relationship between TLR4 and lymphocyte function requires further investigation.
Does Internal Capital Market Membership Matter for Financing Behavior? An Empirical Analysis

The paper investigates firms’ financing behavior, contrasting samples of members of active internal capital markets (ICM) and comparable stand-alone peers, in terms of cost of capital, capital structure, and the speed of adjustment towards preferred capital structure. Univariate results document that ICM participants exhibit lower costs of capital, higher financial leverage ratios than their counterparts, and both ICM and stand-alone firms tend to have preferred target leverage ratios. Regression results document that both ICM members and single-segment firms, adjust dynamically their financial leverage towards their preferred targets at different speeds. Findings suggest that ICM membership mitigates incentive and informational problems.
Knowledge of Pulmonary Tuberculosis in the Saudi Community in Jeddah

Background: Pulmonary tuberculosis is a common and current health problem in Saudi Arabia. Public education and awareness are essential for the prevention of tuberculosis. This study aims at assessing the level of knowledge among people in Jeddah regarding this re-emerging disease. Methods: A cross-sectional, self-administrated questionnaire-based study was conducted at three main shopping centers in Jeddah city, after pilot study testing. A structured questionnaire was developed to assess the basic knowledge about pulmonary tuberculosis which included demographic data, level of education, source and level of knowledge (basic facts) about pulmonary tuberculosis. Results: The questionnaire was completed by 436 recruited subjects; 256 (58.7%) females, age ranged between 12 and 72 (mean 28.54 years; SD ±11.2); 165 (38.9%) were students and 154 (36.3%) were employees. The majority (73%) of candidates were relatively well educated or completed high school. 53.3% of the candidates assumed had sufficient knowledge regarding tuberculosis. 36% were unaware that lungs were the primary organ affected, over half (50.9%) denied it is an infectious disease, and almost half (47.4%) were unaware of effective treatment. The mean score of the level of knowledge for the whole group was 5.20 out of 11 (SD ± 2.95); 39% scored less than 4. Females scored better than males, 5.55 and 4.69 out of 11, respectively with a p value of 0.003. Conclusion: The data showed that public awareness regarding pulmonary tuberculosis was below expectation. Essential information about the disease was lacking even among well educated people, though female were found to be knowledgeable compared to males.