Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molybdenum Stress Modulates Enzymes Responsive to Oxidative Stress and Affects Seeds Viability and Vigor in Chickpea

ABSTRACT The importance of molybdenum (Mo) for plant growth is disproportionate with respect to the absolute amounts required by most plants. Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) cv. K-75 plants were raised in refined sand in glasshouse at graded levels from 0.002 to 1 µM for 100 days. Mo deficiency symptoms appeared as interveinal chlorosis of middle and old leaves. Compared with the control (0.2 µM Mo), dry matter, yield and seed protein decreased at low and excess Mo. The concentration of Mo in leaves and seed as well as the activity of nitrate reductase (NR) increased with an increase in Mo supply. The activities of antioxidative enzymes stimulate at both low and excess Mo supply. Low and excess Mo decreased the lipid peroxidation status in chickpea leaves, suggesting its antiperoxidative nature. The values of deficiency, threshold of deficiency and threshold of toxicity of Mo were, respectively, 0.38, 1.2 and 15 µg g−1 in leaves of chickpea.
Persistence of Activist Short-Sellers’ Performance

We examine whether activists exhibit persistent cross-sectional performance differences in identifying targets to short. Although we find no evidence of performance persistence using target returns, we document that the target is more likely to delist if the activist had a greater percentage of past targets that delist. Investors recognize this persistent aspect of performance in reacting to the publication of short campaigns. Furthermore, we find that the performance persistence in identifying targets that delist is greater when activists are inexperienced, consistent with activists’ facing greater incentives to establish a reputation early in their careers.
Extrapolation and Cognitive Dissonance in the Market for Credit Risk

A measure of heterogeneous beliefs based on the high-frequency credit market information is associated with an increase in the firm's debt issuance and investments and a decrease in the cost of debt the following month. Inferring an elevated credit-market belief as investors' optimistic outlook on firms' prospects predicts future credit returns. Expectations move with the leverage ("moneyness") levels and correlate with risk factors. The existence of predictable mean reversion in credit market conditions reinforces these results.
Do Financial Crises Affect Firms' Cash Holdings?

We study the effect of financial crises on firms' cash holdings with a sample of 40 recent systemic banking crises. Consistent with the hypothesis that financial crises increase the likelihood of future crises and increase precautionary liquidity demand, we find that post-crisis firms increase their cash holdings. Furthermore, the increase in cash holdings is concentrated in more severe banking crises, proxied by output loss, fiscal costs of bank bailouts, peak NPAs and reduction in aggregate bank credit in the crisis, and crises in countries with banks dominated financial system.
The Index Effect: Evidence from the Option Market

We document a significantly positive response of delta-hedged option positions on companies entering or leaving the S&P 500 index. Our findings (i) hold for both call and put options, (ii) are robust to placebo- and risk-adjustments, and (iii) are stronger for companies that are likely subject to more demand pressure from stock index investors. The inclusion effect is permanent, while the exclusion effect is transitory. We explore various mechanisms to explain these results, including leading theories of benchmarking, investor recognition, noise trading, and dispersion trading. We find that these explanations cannot individually account for all our novel results.
Limited Liability, the CAPM and Speculative Grade Firms: A Monte Carlo Experiment

Assuming that investors have limited liability has strong implications for asset pricing: it allows equity to be valued as a call option within the CAPM's framework; predicts that investors who ignore bankruptcy will find an upward bias in the intercept of stocks' characteristic lines; and is consistent with the detection of a variety of return anomalies related to size, leverage and business risk, all of which are subsumed by financial distress. Monte Carlo experiments show that these predicted anomalies are significant for speculative grade firms: when bankruptcy risk is 5% (20%), correlation between free cash flows and the market 40%, and the market premium 9%, OLS underestimates true equity beta by 10% (23%) and unconditional expected returns on equity by 164 bp (384 bp) per year.
Quantifying Mileage Runs

This paper reports on the results of a large-scale field quasi-experiment in a premium status tier reward loyalty program setting. Our main goal is to understand strategic consumer behavior in such programs, and quantify the value of the tier reward by estimating the associated change in reward points collected strategically by consumers. We follow the addition of a new reward tier to an existing loyalty program and by using the program participants as their own controls, compare their behaviors before and after the change in the program structure. We further hypothesize heterogeneity within program participants with respect to their strategic response and document rich patterns of participants' behaviors, which we associate with their baseline spending habits and with whether they are obtaining or maintaining their current status.
Illegal Buyouts

This study empirically examines the effects of a regulation change on the structure and governance of leveraged buyouts (LBOs) within the Italian private equity market, whose transactions were only recently legalized. With a new data set covering approximately 85% of the buyout funds active in Italy during the period of 1999–2006, we find that a regulation that prohibits LBOs can reduce their frequency, but does not exclude them altogether. Rather, it inhibits efficient governance and distorts decision making. Overall, the data are consistent with the view that laws prohibiting LBOs result in less efficient LBO arrangements.
Capital Gains and Investors' Reactions to Earnings Announcements

This paper examines, using comprehensive trading records of Finnish investors, how investors with different capital gain positions react to earnings announcements. I find that the magnitude of gains and losses strongly affect individual investors' abnormal selling volume. The larger the gains or losses the less the investors will sell. This magnitude effect tends to be stronger in the domain of losses than gains. I also find that individual investors holding losses react somewhat less to corporate news than those carrying gains, but this disposition effect is weaker than the magnitude effect. These results provide support for the prospect theory.
Measuring Disparities in Cost and Spending across Connecticut School Districts

Despite multiple court cases and repeated efforts at reform, there are still significant concerns about the equity and the adequacy in Connecticut’s public K–12 education funding. One vital component of any attempt to reform education finance is a methodologically rigorous evaluation of what it would cost school districts across the state to achieve target performance standards given their student characteristics. This report addresses that need, evaluating the equity and the adequacy of school spending in Connecticut based on education costs. Different from actual school expenditure, a district’s education cost is an estimation based on its cost factors that are outside the direct control of local officials at any given point in time;efficiency levels are held constant across school districts in the estimation. This report finds large disparities in education costs due to differences among school districts in cost factors. It also finds that, despite existing state aid programs, disparities in cost-adjusted spending across the state remain large. Spending in some districts is well below the levels needed to achieve common performance goals. Among the specific findings of this report is that in the last year for which data were analyzed, the average costs of school districts with the lowest socioeconomic status and highest level of student need were 62 percent greater than those of districts with the highest socioeconomic status and the lowest level of student need. When this report holds every district’s efficiency at the statewide average level, it finds that more than half of Connecticut’s public school students attended districts where spending was insufficient to meet the “predicted costs” to achieve the statewide average student test performance level. A direct, negative consequence of spending inadequacy is student underperformance relative to the common student performance target. This report recommends that the state consider adopting the cost measure as the basis of a new, scientifically grounded, equitable, and adequate formula that allocates more state aid to districts with higher costs. It also suggests that many districts need to increase their spending to meet their predicted costs and close the gap between student performance and the common goal. The exact amount of the additional spending needed partly depends on the state’s choices for the student performance target and the common level of district efficiency. For example, this report estimates that in the last year analyzed, with district efficiency held at the statewide average level, an additional $940 million, or an increase of 12.3 percent from statewide public K–12 school spending, would have been needed to fully fund the predicted costs required to achieve the statewide average student test performance level in every district. While the state and local governments now face great fiscal difficulties induced by the COVID-19 pandemic, they should remain committed to the investment in public education, because it will affect Connecticut’s economic growth in the long run.
Inflation, Interest Rate and the Maastrich Rule

Inflation and fiscal performance are interlinked and called for proper legislative and institutional requirements to implement policies. We argue that more attention should be paid to nominal indicators like inflation and nominal interest rate in designing fiscal rules and we attempt to corroborate our suggestion from multiple aspects. Debt decomposition indicates the importance of inflation and nominal interest rate in debt accumulation. Using a simple fiscal simulation, we demonstrate the effect of neglecting these nominal variables in the application of the most well-known European fiscal rule, the Maastricht (3 percent of GDP) rule.
Related Party Transactions and Audit Fees: The Role of the Internal Audit Function in Malaysia

Related party transactions (RPTs) are viewed as genuine transactions that rationally fulfill other economic demands of a company. However, RPTs can also be used to transfer wealth from minority shareholders to controlling shareholders. The existence of such transactions may deteriorate financial reporting quality, increase audit risk, and as a result increase audit fees. This study examines the relationship between RPTs and audit fees in Malaysia, where ownership is often concentrated within a controlling family and corporate governance mechanisms are poor. It also investigates the moderating effect of the internal audit function (IAF) on this relationship. We find that external auditors base their fees on the types of RPTs undertaken. Specifically, our results show that audit fees are higher for firms that undertake RPTs involving the sale and purchase of assets, goods, and services. We also document that external auditors rely on the IAF, and thus their fees are lower for firms that undertake RPTs and that have made a large investment in an IAF. Our study is the first to provide evidence that RPTs in Malaysian firms may be abused as a channel to facilitate tunneling and that the IAF plays a vital role in controlling such transactions.
CHLORITOID INCLUSIONS IN PYRITE FROM NAVAJUN, SPAIN

Almost pure Fe end-member chloritoid was identified as the major included phase in large cubes of pyrite from Navajun, Logrono, Spain. The silicates in the pyrite matrix as well as isolated mineral separates were analyzed by electron microprobe, X-ray diffraction, and Mossbauer spectroscopy. Mossbauer spectra taken at room temperature and at 77 Kelvin show a superposition of an Fe (super 2+) doublet and at least one Fe (super 3+) doublet. The chloritoid from one of the pyrite cubes analyzed is more oxidized than that in the two other cubes. Mossbauer data give some evidence that this may be due to the presence of Fe (super 3+) in sites normally occupied by Fe (super 2+) . In all samples, significant effects due to preferred orientation have been observed in both the X-ray and Mossbauer spectra.
Risk Exchange Under EUUP

In this paper, we consider an equilibrium insurance premium and risk exchange in a pure exchange economy with ambiguity or Knightian uncertainty. Each agent’s preference is represented by the expected utility with uncertainty probability (EUUP) theory. The Buhlmann’s economic premium principle is generalized under EUUP. Contrary to the existing models, our principle under uncertainty is given unanimously and can be calculated more easily and explicitly. Through comparative statics, we show that insurance transactions occur and demand for insurance is not always comonotonic due to the difference in the degree of ambiguity aversion even if all of the agents in the economy are ambiguity averse or ambiguity loving.
Is Islamic Banking Ethical: An Inquiry Based on SLO Framework (A Case of Meezan Bank)

This research revolves around the question “is Islamic Banking ethical? ” To describe what is ethical SLO framework has been used. SLO refers to the ongoing acceptance of a company or industry's standard business practices and operating procedures by its stakeholders. For this study HR practices are considered as in the SLO framework context. In this study, the objective was to find out whether Islamic Banking is ethical or not by looking deeper into its HR practices. To conduct the research Meezan Bank was chosen. The employees of Meezan Bank were interviewed. The results showed that Meezan Bank is working ethically as an Islamic Bank. People associated with Meezan Bank believed that Islamic Banking is ethical; as they are fulfilling all the obligations towards Islam. It is not harming any personnel or hurting their sentiments. Although Islamic Banking is a newer concept and need some improvement on the whole but still the organization socially accepted and is ethical.
Demand Forecast and Update Based on Blockchain Technology

This paper aims to solve the problem of information asymmetry in the supply chain through block-chain technology. We consider a drop shopping supply chain, which includes one supplier and one retailer who has more accurate demand forecast. The demand forecast of the retailer is mainly based on past selling data on a private block-chain. And the retailer can choose to join a consortium block-chain to share the demand forecast credibly. We consider three types of information sharing scenarios with a fixed cost of joining the consortium block-chain: retailer bears all the fixed cost, supplier bears part of the cost by providing a fixed subsidy, supplier bears part of the cost by providing a wholesale discount. We find the perfect Bayesian equilibrium (PBE) with threshold strategy in all three scenarios. And the numerical simulations mainly show that, the supplier’s direct subsidy and wholesale discount strategy will increase the retailer’s joining probability but hurt her expected profits. As the fixed cost increases, the expected profit both the retailer and the supply chain system will decrease at first but increase later, and finally converge to a constant. When product margin for the supplier is lower, the retailer’s willingness to join is higher. The supplier is only willing to provide subsidies when the cost is around a medium level. When the fixed cost is in a large range, the retailer will rather make a decentralized decision in in-completing information than join the consortium block-chain.
Aggregate Tone and Gross Domestic Product

We examine whether earnings announcement textual tone, aggregated across individual publicly traded firms, helps to predict future GDP growth. Prior literature shows changes in aggregate accounting earnings are useful in predicting future economic growth, but only when aggregate earnings changes are negative. Because conservative accounting rules limit managers’ ability to communicate positive news in a timely manner, we look to corporate narrative tone as a possible source of timely positive information disseminated by publicly traded firms. Our results show that aggregate tone is useful in predicting future economic growth, but only when the change in aggregate tone is positive. Our study contributes to prior literature by providing initial evidence on the link between qualitative accounting disclosure, accounting timeliness, and macroeconomic outcomes.
Mobile App Adoption and Its Differential Impact on Consumer Shopping Behavior

The mobile application (app) market is one of the fastest growing markets in recent years. In this study, we investigate how app adoption changes customers’ hotel booking behaviors using a dataset of around 16,000 randomly selected customers’ hotel booking and stay information from one of the largest hotel chains in China. Our analyses find that customer purchase frequency and total sales increased after app adoption. Additional investigation shows that customers’ search behaviors also evolved post‐adoption. Specifically, customers tended to book rooms earlier and select options with less discount, which indicates that app users reduced their search intensity after app adoption. We further investigate the differential impact of mobile app adoption on sales, taking into account consumer heterogeneity in price sensitivity and purchase frequency. We find that both price‐sensitive and ‐insensitive customers increased the number of bookings, and they tended to book earlier post‐adoption. Furthermore, price‐sensitive customers on average booked more expensive rooms with less discount after app adoption, suggesting that these customers likely decreased their search effort. In terms of hotel stay frequency, app adoption increased low‐frequency customers’ purchase frequency but did not have any significant effect on high‐frequency customers. These analyses provide a more nuanced view of how mobile apps change consumer search and purchase behaviors. Our findings have important managerial implications. With a better understanding of customer behaviors, firms can provide incentives to customers who are more likely to be affected by mobile app adoption.
Market Orientation and Performance Measurement System Adoption Impact on Performance in SMEs

This study investigates how market-oriented behavior (MO) and performance measurement systems (PMS) adoption are associated with performance in SMEs. Empirical data was collected by a survey from 123 Finnish firms. Empirical data is analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and factor analysis. Factor analysis resulted in two different factors for the performance i.e. non-financial and financial. According to the results, MO has positive relationships with PMS adoption and non-financial performance. However, MO and financial performance have an indirect relationship when mediated by PMS adoption. We found also that PMS adoption is an important factor which explains variance both in financial and non-financial performance. Both MO and PMS adoption are important determinants of performance in SMEs but they have a different effect. Adoption of PMS enhances the effect of MO on firm performance. Thus, three (of four) hypotheses is supported. Overall, the results show for practitioners that improving marketing accountability in MO firms with PMS is compatible with performance improvement.
The Behavior of Corporate Cash Holdings: Evidence from Saudi Arabia.

This paper investigates the behavior of corporate cash holdings across countries using publicly traded firms from the United States and Saudi Arabia. It documents that Saudi firms hold less cash than U.S. firms and tries to explain the differences in the behavior of cash holdings. It shows that Saudi firms with governmental ownership hold less cash than Saudi firms without governmental ownership. Consequently, it shows that Saudi firms are different from U.S. firms and ownership structure has a significant impact on the Saudi cash holding decisions.
What Is So Special About KOSPI 200 Index Futures Contract? An Analysis of Trading Volume and Liquidity

The Korean Stock Exchange's (KSE) KOSPI 200 Index futures and options have been the fastest growing derivatives contracts in the world in recent years. This paper presents an analysis of the factors contributing to the success, as measured by trading volume, of the KOSPI 200 Index futures contract. Both contract and market specific factors are investigated to distinguish between alternative explanations. Although contract specifications are not unusual, an analysis of variables connected to market activity indicate lack of hedging-motivated trades on Korean index futures market. Formal tests conducted within the context of a GMM-based structural model, as well as a dynamic model of price changes and trading volume, further support the contention that speculation seems to be the primary motive to trade. The findings offer insights into the surge in trading volume, which could be useful for the design and development of new derivatives contracts, especially in emerging markets.
Can’t Save or Won’t Save – The Role of Financial Resilience in Retirement Saving Among Young British Adults.

This study examines the role of human agency in additional retirement saving activity for British adults in their 30s and 40s on the premise that individuals are increasingly encouraged to save more and from earlier on. Young adults’ inadequate retirement saving has largely been explained by undesirable attitudinal or behavioural tendencies, such as myopia, the disinclination to save (‘won’t save’) or a simple lack of financial resources (‘can’t save’). The study examines to what extent these two aspects may help to explain young adults’ retirement saving decision-making processes. Using a modified version of Hershey and colleagues’ Model of Financial Planning, the study analyses how attitudinal and behavioural tendencies and their socio-economic characteristics interact, and to what extent such interaction is meaningful. Results show that financial resilience, which refers to individuals’ everyday financial behaviours, is the strongest predictor of additional retirement saving activity beyond formal pensions. This quality, however, is very closely connected to an individual’s socio-economic situation, such as household income and homeownership. These findings suggest that individuals’ attitudes and behaviours are highly relevant to understanding retirement saving decisions but are also intertwined with their social and economic arrangements.
What Factors Keep Cash Alive in the European Union?

This paper aims to analyze the determinants of cash usage in a selection of European Union (EU) countries over the 2003–2016 period, based on a set of technological, socioeconomic, and socio-cultural indicators and cost components. Our results reveal the existence of both common and region-specific determinants for the EU advanced and Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. In both groups cash usage is determined by payment system characteristics. Additionally, in the EU advanced countries cash usage can also be explained by the level of economic development and income inequalities and proliferation of Internet. In contrast, cash usage in CEE countries is negatively associated with consumer confidence and is inversely related to the technological progress, expressed in terms of mobile users.