Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Zero Leverage and The Value in Waiting to Issue Debt

This paper documents that the real option to have debt motivates some firms to remain debt-free, even when standard trade-off theory predicts that these firms should have leverage. The real option has a first-order effect similar to the effect of bankruptcy costs in addressing the zero-leverage puzzle: the observation that many firms seemingly forgo sizable debt benefits by remaining debt-free. The debt-free firms’ value includes the option whose value is derived from future debt benefits and hedging bankruptcy costs. This paper proposes an optimal timing model for having debt and finds support for the model’s predictions through calibrations and simulations.
Identifying leaders among IPO firms: a content analysis of analyst coverage reports

We examine the ability of analysts to identify firms with superior future performance, based on their identification of leadership positions of newly public firms in initial coverage reports. Leadership identification can be expected to reflect analysts’ specialized industrial knowledge and interpretation of the competitive advantages of a firm, and leadership sentences to identify discussion by analysts of firms’ leadership positions from initial coverage reports for U.S. IPOs issued during 1999-2012. We find that firms identified by analysts as leaders generally do not provide superior peer-adjusted profit margins or net sales to non-leader firms. We find no difference in the ability of lead-underwriter affiliated analysts (LUWs) and non-LUWs in identifying leaders, suggesting the analyst affiliation tends not to bias the leadership identification. The non-informative leadership identification is not attributable to the conflict of interests in lead-underwriter affiliated analysts. We also find that both LUW and non-LUW analysts tend to be more conservative about firms’ leadership position after the Global Settlement implemented in 2003. 1 29 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh, UK, EH8 9JS
Assessment of Ostrom’s social-ecological system framework for the comanagement of small-scale marine fisheries in Colombia: from local fishers’ perspectives

Fishery resource management under extractive production models in the Anthropocene has contributed to the collapse of fish stocks, threatening the food and livelihood security of many people, especially fishers. Common-pool resource theory has established the relevance of the design principles of Elinor Ostrom, which favor collective actions for the management of these resources. With the help of small-scale fishers, we assessed the state of Ostrom’s principles in the study system to determine the conditions required to implement fishery comanagement in the future. The communities of Taganga (Caribbean coast) and Tumaco (Pacific coast), Colombia, served as case studies because of their known dependence on fishing and because both communities are currently facing a social-ecological crisis within their top-down administrative frameworks. We performed six hearings, three in each community in 2009, 2012, and 2014, in which fishers brainstormed about the weaknesses that are closely related to Ostrom’s social-ecological system framework. Additionally, 14 focus groups with 119 fishers (31 in Taganga in 2015; 88 in Tumaco in 2017) were conducted, one for each major fishing method used in each community. The obtained results made it possible to establish a community vision on the condition of the principles in each community, and the principles were prioritized by the fishers do determine which ones need immediate attention. The inhabitants of both Taganga and Tumaco expressed the urgent need to establish clear biophysical limits among resource users, to gain the participation of all actors involved, and to build nested enterprises. In particular, the community of Tumaco considered monitoring resources and regulations, establishing graduated sanctions, and recognizing basic rights to be priorities. Furthermore, future opportunities and conflicts related to fishery comanagement implementation were evident in both communities. Therefore, our results indicate that Taganga and Tumaco are not yet ready to implement fishery comanagement. Nevertheless, they have the knowledge and motivation to overcome the obstacles that prevent them from moving forward with managing their fishery resources and to face the tragedy of the commons.
Market Returns and a Tale of Two Types of Attention

We find that aggregate retail attention to firms (ARA) strongly and negatively predicts future market returns, especially in down markets and during high VIX periods. In contrast, aggregate institutional attention to firms (AIA) weakly but positively predicts future market returns. Periods of high ARA are associated with greater net buying by retail investors. On the other hand, AIA leads ARA, and AIA’s positive market return predictability is stronger when retail investors are inattentive or ahead of major news announcements. Our results suggest that attention facilitates institutional investors’ acquisition of valuable information, while retail attention delays the diffusion of negative news.
Tax-Planning vs. Coordination: The Dual-Role of Internal Capital Allocation

How do firms’ tax-planning strategies interrelate with other managerial objectives? I model a tradeoff between international tax-planning and the coordination of subsidiary-specific expertise in an MNC’s capital allocation decision. The model shows that (1) when the internal struggle among subsidiaries is high, the MNC’s responsiveness to tax incentives is low, and (2) tax incentives constrain the set of allocations that promote internal collaboration. I then model the implication of this tradeoff on how the MNC alters its capital allocation in response to a tax cut. The model predicts that a tax cut from a high-tax country alleviates subsidiaries’ struggle against internal collaboration, but contrary to conventional wisdom, an MNC may reduce its capital allocation to that country. To empirically test these predictions, I use an exogenous event, the implementation of the “patent-box” regime, as the tax cut, and find evidence supporting the theory. Taken together, my study illustrates the interdependence of a firm’s tax strategy and its managerial goals and the implications of this interdependence for the effects of a tax policy.
Technology Acceptance within Informal Personal Learning Environments: A Qualitative Analysis

Creating and using informal personal learning environments (IPLEs) enables personalisation of learning to individual needs. A comprehensive understanding of factors impacting technology selection and acceptance in IPLEs is still lacking. Drawing on 20 in-depth interviews with undergraduates and mind maps of their IPLEs, this paper presents a discussion of the factors effecting technology selection within IPLEs. Seven factors related to technical/operational capability and critical thinking ability, two key components of digital literacy are discussed. The paper suggests that existing models of technology acceptance need to be modified to include factors such as choice, individuals’ tendency to exploit the social capital of the IPLE and digital literacy to understand technology acceptance within IPLEs. It proposes a conceptual framework of the factors which could be used to guide future research on appropriation of ubiquitous technologies for effective teaching and learning. It concludes with a discussion of the implications and future research opportunities.
2D ZAKHAROV-KUZNETSOV-BURGERS EQUATIONS WITH VARIABLE DISSIPATION ON A STRIP

An initial-boundary value problem for a 2D Zakharov-KuznetsovBurgers type equation with dissipation located in a neighborhood of x = −∞ and posed on a channel-type strip was considered. The existence and uniqueness results for regular and weak solutions in weighted spaces as well as exponential decay of small solutions without restrictions on the width of a strip were proven both for regular solutions in an elevated norm and for weak solutions in the L2-norm.
How Social Experience Encourages Donation Intention to Charitable Crowdfunding Projects on Social Media: Empathy and Personal Impulsiveness

Embedding charitable crowdfunding into social media is a new practice that encourages pro-social behaviors. The rich social experience in charitable crowdfunding on social media distinguishes this context from other conventional contexts like charity fundraising websites. Specifically, this study incorporates social experience, empathy and personal impulsiveness to investigate donation intention in this new context. By analyzing survey data collected in China, this study finds that empathy mediates the effects of interaction with fundraiser and perceived proximity with donatee on a user’s donation intention. Social influence on social media platform is found to have positive influences on empathy and on donation intention. This study also investigates how empathy’s influence on donation intention varies by personal impulsiveness. It contributes to extant literature by highlighting the mediating role of empathy and the moderating role of personal impulsiveness. It also provides practical insights to encourage pro-social behaviors.
The Informativeness of Retail and Institutional Trades: Evidence from the Finnish Stock Market

This paper examines the informativeness of retail and institutional trades in the Finnish stock market. We extend the structural model of Madhavan, Richardson and Roomans (1997) to a framework that allows us to assess the degree of private information held by different trader types. We document that trades by financial institutions have a significantly greater price impact than trades by retail investors. A decomposition of the bid-ask spread shows that about 9% of the spread is a compensation for trading against better informed retail traders, while 48% of the spread is a compensation for trading against better informed institutions. Intraday, we observe significant variation in the proportions in which institutions and retail investors trade, and document that the informativeness of both types of trades diminishes throughout the trading day. A decomposition of the daily variance of price changes shows that about 13.5% of the daily variance is due to informed institutional trades, while only 2.5% of daily price change variance is due to retail trades. JEL Codes: C22; G14.
A GROUND MOTION INTENSITY MEASURE TO PREDICT NON LINEAR STRUCTURAL RESPONSE AND HIGHER MODES EFFECTS

The objective of this paper is to analyze a new ground motion intensity measure able of predicting the nonlinear behavior and higher modes effects of structures subjected to earthquakes. The new ground motion intensity measure is inspired in a proxy of the spectral shape named Np which is directly related to the nonlinear seismic response and to the spectral shape. In fact, the parameter Np has been successfully used for ground motion record selection strategies for the seismic performance of structures. Although the parameter Np was proposed through the spectral shape in term of pseudoacceleration. It will be observed that Np can be defined through other types of spectral shapes such as those obtained with velocity, displacement, input energy, inelastic parameters and so on. Finally, it will be shown that several ground motion intensity measures are particular cases of the new generalized ground motion intensity measure here proposed which is able to predict the seismic response of building due to both nonlinear and higher modes effects.
The Empirical Investigation of the Capital Inflow Which Influence the Economic Growth of Pakistan: A Block Exogeneity Approach

Abstract: The speculation of foreign financial resources to a country helps to boost up the available resources, increase the capital formation and availability of funds not only to encourage the private investment but also promote more speculation of the resources. The capital inflow does not mean only the flow of currency notes, it means the mobilization of the skilled labor, technology and machinery and all other resources, which are unavailable in the developing economy to assist the growing process. That’s why this study is conducted to capture the influence and association of the capital inflow to the economic development of Pakistan. The finding of the study states that all the variables are co-integrated in the short as well as in the long term, along with sharp convergence to equilibrium. And the availability of resources leads the economy towards stabilization. All the diagnostic and stability test states that the model is normal, no problem of heterogeneity and serial correlation even parameter is also stable. While impulse response analysis determines that the response of all variables would be positive in the future. The study proposed that the government should not create the scenario for crowding out along with the easy excess to the capital.
How Do Bond Investors Measure Performance? Evidence from Mutual Fund Flows

Which factor model do investors in corporate bonds use? We examine this question by tracking investors’ decisions to invest in actively managed corporate bond mutual funds with a revealed preference approach. Our main result is that all bond factor models are dominated by the simple Sharpe ratio. For all major corporate bond mutual fund styles, the Sharpe ratio explains fund flows better than alphas from bond factor models. Since the Sharpe ratio can be easily manipulated in bond markets, our findings have potentially severe implications for fund mangers as well as active traders and buy-and-hold corporate bond mutual fund investors.
An International Survey of Corporate Financial Behavior by Sector

This survey-based research deals with sectorial differences in terms of three main corporate finance policies: investment, financing and dividend. We used a multinational survey that was distributed to CFOs in five countries: US, UK, Germany, Canada and Japan. We found statistically significant differences between the nine sectors examined in terms of all the three major financial policies. These differences may be due to: (1) the unique financial needs and operational conditions of each sector, and (2) the imitation effect according to which, firms imitate the financial behavior of other firms in their sector. We found that the use of well-known investment appraisal techniques is most common in the construction sector and least common in the technology sector. The IRR is the most frequently used investment appraisal technique for the entire survey sample, especially in the communication sector and rarely in the technology sector. The lowest financial leverage has been found in the technology sector while the highest was found in the finance sector. A constant sum per-share is the most common dividend policy in the following sectors: retail and wholesale, services, manufacturing and transport. On the other hand, the construction, energy, communication and technology sectors, are characterized by a high percentage of firms that do not pay dividends at all.
How Contextualisation Affects the Vulnerability of Individuals to Phishing Attempts

Hackers who engage in phishing manipulate their victims into revealing confidential information by exploiting their motives, habits and cognitive biases. Drawing on heuristic-systematic processing and anchoring effects, this study examines how the contextualisation of phishing messages, by modifying their framing and content, affects individual susceptibility to phishing. This study also investigates if there is a discrepancy between how individuals believe they will react to phishing attempts and their actual reactions. Using two fake phishing campaigns and an online survey, we find that individuals are more susceptible to phishing attempts when the phishing messages they receive are specific to their context, thereby appealing to their psychological vulnerabilities. There is also a significant gap between how individuals believe they will react and their actual reactions to phishing attempts. Finally, we find that these results vary by gender.
Growth Performance and Economics of Production of broiler chickens fed Agro Industrial by-products

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the growth performance and economics of broiler chickens fed diets containing different agro industrial by-products. Five diets containing wheat offal, millet offal, sorghum offal, rice offal and maize offal were formulated and coded diet 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively. 500 day old Anak 2000 broiler chicks were randomly allotted to five dietary treatments in a completely randomized design and each treatment was replicated five times. Feed and water were provided ad libitum and the feeding trial lasted for eight weeks. At the starter phase, daily feed intake (62.46-67.17 g; P<0.001), daily weight gain (22.16-25.23 g; P<0.05) and feed conversion ratio (2.49-3.02; P<0.001) were affected by dietary treatment. At the finisher phase daily weight gain (141.21-145.26 g) was significantly (P<0.05) influenced while daily weight gain and feed conversion did not differ significantly. The best feed cost in naira per kilogram body gain was obtained on diet 5 (Maize offal) with a value of ₦175.22 kg -1 . It can be concluded that that maize offal, sorghum offal, rice offal and millet offal are suitable substitutes for wheat offal in the diet of broiler chickens without compromising performance attributes. However, maize offal is more economical as fibre source.
Dynamic Copula Framework for Pairs Trading

Pairs trading is a popular algorithmic trading strategy employed by many practitioners. In recent studies, the Copula Method was proposed to eliminate the rigid assumptions implied by the conventional approaches. However, the existing Copula Method utilizes a static model. On the contrary, it is a stylized fact that stock returns exhibit volatility clustering. Hence, in this paper, a Dynamic Copula framework for pairs trading is proposed using the Dynamic Copula-GARCH model. This aims to further generalize the existing Copula Method. To illustrate the performance of our proposed approach, a comparative analysis, with the conventional method and Copula Method serving as benchmarks, is performed for three Asia Pacific markets (Australia, Japan and Korea). Empirical results show that the proposed approach yields more robust performance as compared to the conventional method and the Copula Method.
Consumption Dynamics and Allocation in the Family∗

This paper studies the dynamics of consumption and earnings in the family, and their allocation among family members, in the face of idiosyncratic labor market uncertainty. I develop a dynamic collective household model for individuals in a family who differ in preferences and bargaining power but are tied down together by a common budget constraint. Family members do not necessarily commit to each other for life; instead, the revelation of new information can change the allocation of bargaining power among them. The model features public consumption at the family level, private consumption and leisure at the individual level, and asset accumulation. I derive approximate closed form expressions for consumption and earnings and I use them to map the model to observed behavior. I pointidentify a large set of gender-specific preference parameters, the unobserved allocation of consumption, and a rich set of bargaining effects utilizing data on individual wages and earnings, and aggregate family-level consumption. To achieve this, I need consumption information on single adult individuals just before they form a family. Preliminary results from the PSID (1999-2011) indicate that labor supply preferences differ between men and women but consumption preferences do not. The estimation allocates men a large share of consumption (60%); however this allocation is imprecisely estimated. Bargaining effects are large and statistically significant pointing to a rejection of full commitment. ∗In various stages of this project I benefited from valuable advice from Richard Blundell and Ian Preston, and generous support from Luigi Pistaferri. I am grateful to all. I also thank Arun Advani, Orazio Attanasio, PierreAndré Chiappori, Mariacristina De Nardi, Eric French, James Heckman, Thibaut Lamadon, Valérie Lechene, Tim Lee, Jeremy Lise, Petra Persson, Suphanit Piyapromdee, Itay Saporta Eksten, and seminar and conference participants at UCL, WIEM 2014, the CenEA Workshop on Optimizing over the Lifetime, and the 2014 Zeuthen Workshop on the Life Cycle Model of Individual Choices in Copenhagen. †Alexandros Theloudis: Department of Economics, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, UK. Email: a.theloudis@gmail.com
Superstar Earners and Market Size: Evidence from the Entertainment Industry∗

This paper provides a first quasi-experimental test for the superstar theory. The superstar theory predicts that wage growth is concentrated at the top during periods of technical change, with particularly stark growth for the highest percentiles of the wage distribution. To test the model, this paper exploits technical change in entertainment coming from the quasi-random introduction of television filming across local labor markets. A government run licensing procedure and a regulator shut down lead to plausibly exogenous variation in television access and allows me to test the key model predictions. The impact of technical change on the wage distribution is closely aligned with the predictions of the superstar model providing strong evidence for the superstar effect. My results show that the superstar effect can generate vastly skewed income growth. The income share of the top 1% of entertainers grows by 30% as market size doubles. At this rate superstar effects could explain about half of the growth in US top income shares.
Water Consumption, Domestic Wastewater Generation and its Biodegradability, Based on Monthly Income and Ambient Temperature, in Kermanshah City

The aim of this study is to investigate water consumption, domestic wastewater generation and organic matter concentration, based on both, socio-economic status and some meteorological parameters including temperature. The method of this study is descriptive and analytical. A checklist was used to collect data on socioeconomic status. Water consumption was obtained based on water bills. Generated wastewater and organic matter such as biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) per capita/day were measured every four hours, during a day. Comparing water consumption in winter and summer showed significant difference in three regions. The water consumption was (398 ± 75, 291 ± 48 and 188 ± 50) for warm climate and (200 ± 25, 188 ± 35 and , 140 ± 41) in cold weather. In spite of an apparent difference in BOD in three regions, it was not significant statistically. Water consumption has strongly considerable relationship with socioeconomic status (P value<0.001 and r =0.98), while the generated wastewater in these regions were not different, statistically for warm climate (220 ± 60, 204 ± 15 and170 ±34) , and in cold weather (170 ± 21, ;158 ± 31 and 112 ± 29), also the generated wastewater did not have considerable difference in cold climate. This study confirms that, the effects of these two parameters, i.e., monthly economical income and seasonal variations on water consumption, generated wastewater and biodegradable organic loading per capita/day is considerable. It was concluded that water consumption and wastewater generations were much more in warm climate than in cold weather. Finally through this study the estimation of water consumption, wastewater generation and BOD concentration becomes possible.