Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Augmenting the technology acceptance model with trust model for the initial adoption of a blockchain-based system

Background In the collaborative business environment, blockchain coupled with smart contract removes the reliance on a central system and offers data integrity which is crucial when the transacting parties rely on the shared data. The acceptance of such blockchain-based systems is necessary for the continued use of the services. Despite many extensive studies evaluating the performance of blockchain-based systems, few have focused on users’ acceptance of real-life applications. Objective The main objective of this research is to evaluate the user acceptance of a real-life blockchain-based system (BBS) by observing various latent variables affecting the development of users’ attitudes and intention to use the system. It also aims to uncover the dimensions and role of trust, security and privacy alongside the primary Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)-based predictors and their causal relationship with the users’ behavior to adopt such BBS. Methods We tested the augmented TAM with Trust Model on a BBS that comprises two subsystems: a Shopping Cart System (SCS), a system oriented towards end-users and a Data Sharing System (DSS), a system oriented towards system administrators. We set research questions and hypotheses, and conducted online surveys by requesting each participant to respond to the questionnaire after using the respective system. The main study comprises two separate sub-studies: the first study was performed on SCS and the second on DSS. Furthermore, each study data comprises initial pre-test and post-test data scores. We analyzed the research model with partial least square structural equation modelling. Results The empirical study validates our research model and supports most of the research hypotheses. Based on our findings, we deduce that TAM-based predictors and trust constructs cannot be applied uniformly to BBS. Depending on the specifics of the BBS, the relationships between perceived trust antecedents and attitudes towards the system might change. For SCS, trust is the strongest determinant of attitudes towards system, while DSS has perceived privacy as the strongest determinant of attitudes towards system. Quality of system shows the strongest total effect on intention to use SCS, while perceived usefulness has the strongest total effect on intention to use DSS. Trust has a positive significant effect on users’ attitudes towards both BSS, while security does not have any significant effect on users’ attitudes toward BBS. In SCS, privacy positively affects trust, but security has no significant effect on trust, whereas, in DSS, both privacy and security have significant effects on trust. In both BBS, trust has a moderating effect on privacy that correlates with attitudes towards BBS, whereas security does not have any mediating role between privacy and attitudes towards BBS. Hence, we recommend that while developing BBS, particular attention should be paid to increasing user trust and perceived privacy.
Assessment of total (anti)oxidant status in goat kids

Abstract The redox potential of goat serum was assessed by different spectrophotometric assays. Among them, three methods are commonly applied for the evaluation of the oxidative (reactive oxygen metabolites, ROMs, and total oxidant status, TOS) and nitrosative (NO⚫ metabolites, NOx) stress, and four methods for the evaluation of the antioxidant status: the total antioxidant capacity (TAC) based on the ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP), the total antioxidant activity (TAA) based on the reduction of the coloured ABTS⚫+ radical cation, the free radical scavenging activity (FRSA) based on the reduction of the purple DPPH⚫, and the total thiol levels (TTLs) based on their interaction with DTNB to form a highly coloured anion. Besides, myeloperoxidase (MPO) and ceruloplasmin oxidase (CP) activities were also assessed. Except for TAA, analytical data showed a great inter-individual variation for both oxidant and antioxidant assays. ROMs were strongly correlated with CP, while TOS with MPO and TAC. Furthermore, a tendency between TOS and FRSA was shown. NOx was correlated with TAC and TAA, and a tendency with TOS was shown. No correlations appeared among the antioxidant assays, even if a tendency between TAC and TAA was evidenced, but TAC was correlated with MPO activity. The observed correlation between ROMs and CP is discussed as a possible analytical interference. The absence of correlation among the antioxidant biomarkers suggests the simultaneous use of a panel of tests to verify any changes in the redox balance, mainly in livestock in which reference values for each biomarker are lacking.
A Literature Review: Foreign Investor Impact on Corporate Board Attributes

This paper is a review of the exiting literature on corporate governance focusing on the key attributes of board namely the executive compensation, Board independence and Board busyness. The paper looks into the exiting work on how the foreign investment impacts the corporate governance and the main theories supporting it. The paper provides a model and a research setup for conducting future empirical studies specific to an economy on the impact of different types of foreign institutional investors on the corporate governance through the channel of board attributes. It provides a detailed discussion on how the endogeneity issues are addressed by previous literature and what new empirical research in governance can look forward to.
Understanding Momentum and Reversals

Stock momentum, long-term reversal, and other past return characteristics that predict future returns also predict future realized betas, suggesting these characteristics capture time-varying risk compensation. We formalize this argument with a conditional factor pricing model. Using instrumented principal components analysis, we estimate latent factors with time-varying factor loadings that depend on observable firm characteristics. We show that factor loadings vary significantly over time, even at short horizons over which the momentum phenomenon operates (one year), and this variation captures reliable conditional risk premia missed by other factor models commonly used in the literature. Our estimates of conditional risk exposure can explain a sizable fraction of momentum and long-term reversal returns and can be used to generate even stronger return predictions. <br>
Linking Wealth and Punishment Effectiveness: Punishment and Cooperation Under Congruent Heterogeneities

Global and local cooperation in supplying global public goods is often insufficient. In this respect, laboratory experiments show that peer punishment is an effective cooperation&#8208;enhancing instrument. However, it is unclear whether peer punishment would facilitate cooperation and public good provision even under congruent heterogeneities in wealth and punishment effectiveness. To this end, we experimentally study the effect of peer punishment under joint heterogeneities, where either the richest or the poorest member is also the most effective punisher. We compare these joint heterogeneities to treatments with single heterogeneities in either endowment or punishment effectiveness and to a baseline symmetry treatment with homogeneous parties. We find that heterogeneity in punishment effectiveness does not matter for cooperation, whereas endowment heterogeneity reduces cooperation compared to symmetry. This is because rich members contribute a lower portion of their endowment to the public good than their poorer counterparts. We also observe that cooperation is higher under joint heterogeneities in endowment and punishment effectiveness than under endowment heterogeneity (with no differences than under symmetry). This holds even when the rich party gains less from cooperation and is the most effective punisher.
Long-Run Risk, the Timing of Its Resolution, and the Interpretation of the Long-Run Risk Model

The long-run risk model is thought to rely on the agent's preference for early resolution of uncertainty (PERU) and has been criticized for assuming an excessive degree of such preference. I observe that the extreme behavior of the model in relation to the PERU depends on the extreme nature of the questions posed and that, more fundamentally, the attribution of the large equity premium to the PERU is questionable to begin with. Since the equity premium can be explained only in terms of risk aversion and intertemporal substitution, the PERU is rather a cost of separating the two.
Regression of Total Value of Equity Toward Total Value of Debt and Loan Liabilities

This paper reports implications from an assumption that total value of equity regresses toward total value of debt and loan liabilities over time. I show that, for example, change in value of equity markets equals change of total value of debt and regression factor determined ten years earlier plus change of value of residual factor and that residual factor explains short and mid-term variance of value of equity markets. Furthermore, I show that expected change in value of equity markets equals constant changes of total value of debt and regression factor and expected change of residual factor and that the constant changes drive the outperformance of equity markets over government bond yields.
Fuel Oxidation and Ignition by Nanosecond Pulse Discharges at Elevated Temperatures

Kinetic studies of plasma assisted oxidation and ignition have been performed in fuel-air mixtures excited by nanosecond dielectric-barrier discharges at elevated temperatures and low pressures. The following topics have been extensively investigated: (i) accuracy of Rayleigh scattering calibration of OH Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF), (ii) characterization of nanosecond pulse discharges, (iii) non-thermal plasma effect on ignition delay, temperature, and OH concentration. For the first topic, temperature and absolute OH number density ([OH]) have been measured by OH LIF in an atmospheric-pressure, near-stoichiometric CH4-air flame generated by a Hencken burner. Excitation transitions from both (v′=0, v′′=0) and (v′=1, v′′=0) bands in the OH AΣ ← XΠ electronic system have been used. Relative OH concentrations have been put on an absolute scale by calibrating against laser Rayleigh scattering. The efficacy of this calibration approach has been demonstrated by comparing with laser absorption measurements performed at the same location in the flame. For the second topic, a high-temperature plasma flow reactor facility has been developed. Plasma uniformity has been validated both from single-shot images of broadband plasma and flame emission using an intensified charge coupled device (ICCD) camera and from the spatial distribution of temperature and relative OH
The Supply of Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosures Among U.S. Firms

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an expanding area of activity for managers and academics. Increases in consumer demand for fair trade goods and growth in assets under professional management and invested with a social responsibility focus are driving demands for information not provided through traditional financial statements and analyses. At the same time, mainstream institutional investors have encouraged incorporation of environmental, social, and governance information into equity analysis. The majority of research in this area has been performed on European and Australian firms. We expand on this literature by exploring the CSR disclosure practices of a size- and industry-stratified sample of publicly-traded U.S. firms. We perform a content analysis on the public information portfolio provided by these firms during 2004. CSR activity was disclosed by most of the sample and was included in nearly half of public disclosures made by the firms during 2004. Of particular emphasis are community matters, health and safety, diversity and human resources matters, and environmental programs. Primary venues of disclosure are mass media releases such as corporate websites and press releases, followed closely by mandatory filings. Consistent with prior research, we identify industry effects in terms of content, emphasis, and reporting format choices. However, we offer only mixed evidence on the existence of a size effect. Disclosure frequency and emphasis is significantly different for the largest one-fifth of the firms, but not for the remainder of the sample. There are, however, identifiable size-effects with respect to reporting format choice. Primary trends are that the use of websites is increasing in firm size, while the use of mandatory filings is decreasing in firm size. Finally, and also consistent with prior literature, we document a generally self-laudatory tone in the content of CSR disclosures for the sample firms.
Greek-based Bond Factors

The scaled bond Greeks, i.e., the absolute values of the price-scaled derivatives of bond prices with respect to yield, are the relevant characteristics for bond pricing. Two factors---the exposures to which are duration and convexity---explain 99.5% of the total variation in bond yields. A duration (convexity) factor earns a positive (negative) and highly significant premium. The corresponding Sharpe ratios on each factor are comparable in absolute value to that of the equity market. The convexity factor is negatively related to the term structure slope, and its premium can be interpreted as compensation for protection against an increased probability of a recession. Our results also provide an interpretation for the well-known inverse relation between bond Sharpe ratios and time to maturity as well as the concave shape of the term structure of bond risk premia.
Liquidity in the German Corporate Bond Market: Has the CSPP Made a Difference?

The Eurosystem purchased €178 billion of corporate bonds between June 2016 and December 2018 under the Corporate Sector Purchase Programme (CSPP). Did these purchases lead to a deterioration of liquidity conditions in the corporate bond market, thus raising concerns about unintended consequences of large-scale asset purchases? To answer this question, we combine the Bundesbank’s detailed CSPP purchase records with a range of liquidity indicators for both purchased and nonpurchased bonds. We find that while the flow of purchases supported secondary market liquidity, liquidity conditions deteriorated in the long-run as the Bundesbank reduced the stock of corporate bonds available for trading in the secondary market.
The Value of Long-term Relationships when Selling to Informal Retailers - Evidence from India

Attempts to distribute durable, life-improving goods to customers at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) -- the more than three billion customers who live on less than US $2.50/day -- through traditional supply chains or e-commerce have largely failed to succeed at scale. Small informal retailers are the primary source of retail purchases for BoP customers, and are often embedded within communities, where local and long-term relationships are particularly important to business transactions. One hypothesis for why companies have struggled to scale rural last-mile distribution is that such relationships are not sufficiently recognized by traditional distributors. We analyze panel data from a distributor selling to 331 formal retailers and 493 informal retailers in India from April 2016-December 2019 to study the role of long-term relationships in selling durable goods to informal retailers. We leverage a staged natural experiment to study the effect of a sales agent reallocation on the subsequent orders placed by informal and formal retailers. We find that formal retailers experience an immediate performance decrease of 35.7-53.8% relative to expected order value and then recover within three sales cycles of a sales agent change, while informal retailers experience a corresponding performance decrease of 70.4-81.9%, and do not experience sustained recovery within five sales cycles. This indicates that business relationships, and disruptions to these relationships, are particularly important when selling to retailers in informal markets.
The Role of Correlation Dynamics in Equity Factor Allocation

The five equity factors from Fama and French (2015) and the momentum factor are pervasive in academia and practice. However, not much is known about their joint distribution and dynamics. We find strong evidence of time-varying volatilities and correlations, but no signs of asymmetric comovements in the tails. Based on our findings, we assess the economic value of volatility and correlation forecasts for mean-variance portfolio optimization. Our analysis shows that, in particular, volatility timing leads to significant utility gains over a static covariance strategy. Correlation timing can enhance this results for highly risk-averse investors.
Can the Tradeoff Theory Explain Debt Structure?

We examine the optimal mixture and priority structure of bank and market debt using a tradeoff model where banks have the unique ability to renegotiate outside formal bankruptcy. Flexible bank debt offers a superior tradeoff between tax shields and bankruptcy costs. Ease of renegotiation limits bank debt capacity, however. Optimal debt structure hinges upon which party has bargaining power in private workouts. Weak firms have high bank debt capacity and utilize bank debt exclusively. Strong firms lever up to their (lower) bank debt capacity, augment with market debt, and place the bank senior. Therefore, the tradeoff theory offers an explanation for: (i) why young/small firms use bank debt exclusively; (ii) why large/mature firms employ mixed debt financing; and (iii) why bank debt is senior. The tradeoff theory also generates predictions consistent with international evidence. In countries where the bankruptcy regime entails soft (tough) enforcement of contractual priority, bank debt capacity is low (high), implying greater (less) reliance on market debt.
The Dual Role of Leaders in Shaping Fraudulent Reporting

We examine whether and how leaders shape fraudulent behaviors within their organization. We use a lab experiment where subjects—randomly assigned the role of leaders or workers—are asked to privately roll a die and report the outcome, with higher reported outcomes corresponding to higher payoffs. Before rolling the die, they can choose how to report the outcome, by either a computer draw or a self-reported die roll. Self-reporting allows for profitable, undetectable earnings manipulation. We vary the leaders’ ability to choose the reporting system, and punish or reward workers for their reporting system choices. Our results indicate that workers are more likely to choose computer reporting when their leaders voluntarily do so, and can punish or reward. Even workers who choose self-reporting reporting tend to cheat less when their leaders choose computer reporting. However, most leaders do not opt for computer reporting in the first place: they frequently choose self-reporting and punish workers who rather choose computer reporting. Collectively, our results reveal a dual role of leaders: they can affect workers’ reporting system choices, but most of the times this exacerbates—rather than fixes—fraudulent behaviors.
Forecast Withdrawals and Reporting Reputation

While accounting research has extensively examined initial guidance disclosures, the disclosures managers make when initial forecasts become materially inaccurate have received much less attention. These updates are unique because managers are communicating that their initial forecasts are no longer correct. In this context, we examine how earnings forecast withdrawals affect managers’ reporting reputation, relative to earnings revisions and nondisclosure. While managers face immediate negative market consequences after withdrawals, they enjoy reputational benefits (in the form of improved credibility) in the long run when guidance updates resume. In contrast, reporting reputation does not improve for managers who revise forecasts or for those who choose not to update at all. Difference-in-differences analyses confirm this incremental boost to credibility associated with withdrawals. This evidence suggests disclosing what managers do not know may be as important as disclosing what they do know when building a reporting reputation.
National Housing Cycles, Borrowing Costs, and Gentrification

This paper documents that national housing market expansions have been associated with accelerating gentrification. Specifically, property values and the share of educated residents increased more in desirable locations (e.g., city centers) than in less desirable locations during periods of national-housing-market expansions. This difference-in-differences holds conditional on changes in local income. A range of additional empirical tests suggest that the direct effect of lower borrowing costs, rather than indirect effects operating through income expansion, is responsible for accelerating gentrification. To interpret this evidence, I present a model in which a reduction in borrowing costs causes a decline in the cost of living in desirable areas for high-income households (relative to the cost for low-income households).
The Impact of News in a Reinforcement-oriented Information Evaluation

In a world of increasingly extensive information, rational investors can make better decisions. However, reinforcement-oriented investors are also more likely to observe preferred signals close to their prior estimate. A focus on these signals reduces belief adaptation. Thus, under the empirically well-documented reinforcement theory, additional information can decrease perception correctness. It explains why wider information accessibility has not increased price efficiency significantly. Managers have an incentive to provide more, diffuse (fewer, precise) signals in case of negative (positive) information. This provides predictions for the post-earnings-announcement drift and dispersion anomaly. An extension shows that the distribution shape matters for information processing. JEL Classification: G02, G12
Trading Opportunities and the Portfolio Choice of Institutional Investors

This paper studies the portfolio choice of institutional investors with short holding horizons. Short-horizon institutions invest more in stocks with lower buy-and-hold return and worse liquidity comparing to other institutional investors. I explain this phenomenon in a model where short-horizon institutions can routinely profit from temporary mispricing. Stocks that are more susceptible to temporary mispricing attract more demand from short-horizon institutions, which reduces long-term stock return and drives out demand from other investors. Empirically, I find that stocks more held by short-horizon institutions provide more short-term trading opportunities, allowing short-horizon institutions to make more trading profit, as my model predicts.
Equity Funds and Derivatives: Evidence from Linked Fund-Trade Data

Building on data collected under the EMIR framework, we provide new insight into the type of derivatives that are traded by UCITS equity funds, why some of them trade derivatives whilst others do not, what makes some more active traders and to what extend the trading in derivatives is a reaction to daily changes in the market. 46% of UCITS equity funds are trading derivatives. Three types of contracts account for 78% of funds’ derivatives trades: currency forwards, equity futures, and equity options. We find that the derivatives trading behavior is related to the fund-family affiliation and the investment strategy. Over time, cash inflows as well as currency risk seem to have a significant influence, which suggests that derivatives are used for transaction costs or risk reduction purposes.