Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can I Trust You with My Money? The Role of Social Trust in Corporate Cash Policy

We examine how corporate cash policy is related to the level of social trust in a country, with trust defined as the subjective probability that an individual assigns to the event of a potential counter-party performing an action that is beneficial or at least not harmful to that individual. We explore two competing hypotheses. On the one hand, in a high-trust country, shareholders are less concerned about managers abusing corporate cash resource for personal gains and therefore allow firms to maintain larger cash holdings. On the other hand, the reduced concern about managerial moral hazard in high-trust countries increases investors’ willingness to provide capital to firms. The resultant greater accessibility of external finance weakens firms’ precautionary saving motive and leads to lower corporate cash reserve. Our analysis of a large sample of firm-year observations from 41 countries supports the first hypothesis. Specifically, corporate cash holding is significantly and positively related to a country’s level of social trust. In addition, consistent with a substitutive relation between subjective belief and formal rules and regulations, the impact of trust is more pronounced in countries with poorer investor protection and weaker legal enforcement. We also observe an elevated effect of trust following negative shocks to investors’ confidence in formal institutions created by high-profile corporate scandals. Finally, we find that the market value of corporate cash holding is significantly higher in high-trust countries. Overall, our results highlight the importance of social trust as an informal institution in influencing corporate cash policy.
Non-Reservation Price Equilibria and Search Without Priors

In this paper we analyse a model of oligopolistic competition in which consumers search without priors. Consumers do not have prior beliefs about the distribution of prices charged by firms and thus try to use a robust search procedure: they minimise the loss relative to the searcher, who knows the price distribution, in the worst case scenario. We derive the optimal stopping rule and show that it does not possess the reservation price property. This means that for a range of prices for which consumers stop searching with a probability strictly between zero and one. We show that for any distribution of search costs there is a unique market equilibrium characterised by price dispersion. Therefore search without priors helps resolve the famous Diamond (1971) paradox. We show that although listed prices approach the monopoly price as the number of firms increases, the effective price paid by consumers does not depend on the number of firms. We show that prices in our model are lower than those in a model where consumers know the distribution of prices. The reason is that consumers actively search in equilibrium, and this pushes prices down. This effect is so strong that the price decrease more than compensates consumers for their extra search costs.
The Effect of Global Competitive Index on Carbon Disclosure

This study aimed to examine theeffect of global competitiveness index on carbon disclosure. This study focuses on in listed non financial companies that participate in ISRA Awards and provide sustainability report from 2010-2014.Sample of this research is nonfinancial companies that participate in ISRA Awards and provide sustainability report from 2010-2014. This research is using multiple regression method with SPSS 22.0 as statistic tool to process research variables from primary data from questionnaires and secondary data in annual reports and sustainability reports. The results showed that global competitiveness index influence positively on the disclosure of carbon emissions. In regard to testing of moderation, the results showed that the environmental performance and intensive carbon industry moderate the relationship between global competitiveness index on the disclosure of carbon emissions. Lastly, the size of the company into a good control variable for disclosure of carbon. For future research, research can add new variables such as economic growth in this research model so there are macro economic perspectives.
Boardroom Centrality and Systematic Risk

We find that boardroom centrality formed by sharing directors across firms can significantly increase firms’ systematic risk. This positive effect is stronger when the shared directors also sit on the boards of other large firms or of firms included in the stock market index. It is also stronger when boardroom centrality is formed by inside executive directors or more experienced directors. Further corroborating these inferences, we find that boardroom centrality increases the accounting fundamental and corporate policy correlations between the appointing firm and other firms in the market. Furthermore, firms with higher boardroom centrality demonstrate significantly less idiosyncratic corporate behavior. Finally, we find that boardroom centrality is positively associated with firms’ cost of equity. These results remain robust after addressing endogenous issues using identification based on exogenous changes in directorship outside the focal firm. Overall, these findings highlight the important roles of corporate leaders in affecting firms’ systematic risk.
Early Stages of Regeneration After Burning in Dry Sclerophyll Vegetation. II. Regeneration by Seed Germination

Following experimental burns in three dry sclerophyll communities, all except the geophytic species regenerated from seedlings in the first year. The annual and perennial species in the shrub strata regenerated from surviving seeds in the soil and ash, and the eucalypts from seeds released from the trees after burning. Although many seeds were destroyed during the fires, the germination of most species was higher in burnt than in unburnt plots. Fire appeared to stimulate germination through direct heat effects on the seeds, and by removing inhibitors present in the unburnt vegetation. Seedling mortality was highest during the first year. Many seedlings died while in the cotyledon stage, the main observed causes of mortality being desiccation, fungal disease and predation by insects. Seedling survival was enhanced by burning, owing to the removal of the litter and other fire-induced changes which made conditions more favourable for seedling establishment and/or growth. Two years after burning, the relative positions of dominance of the three major species in the tall shrub stratum had changed compared with the pre-burn status of each. Evidence suggests that such shifts in dominance depend on a number of interacting factors which selectively promote or inhibit the recovery of each species.
Utility of Hyperspectral Reflectance for Differentiating Soybean (Glycine max) and Six Weed Species

Abstract Reflectance data were subjected to a variety of analysis methods to determine the utility of hyperspectral reflectance for differentiating soybean, soil, and six weed species commonly found in Mississippi agricultural fields. Weed species evaluated were hemp sesbania, palmleaf morningglory, pitted morningglory, prickly sida, sicklepod, and smallflower morningglory. Hyperspectral reflectance data were collected from mature plant leaves three times in 2002 and two times in 2003. Vegetation indices were calculated and subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) and linear discriminant analysis (LDA). The PCA, using vegetation indices, produced the poorest classification accuracies for the plant species studied, generally less than 50%, whereas LDA resulted in classification accuracies greater than those from PCA. Best spectral band combination (BSBC) provided the greatest classification accuracies, with all better than 80% for all data sets. The BSBC indicated three wavelength bands of interest for species discrimination in the short wavelength infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, which are not commonly used in current vegetation indices for species differentiation. These areas of interest were located from 1,445 to 1,475 nm, 2,030 to 2,090 nm, and 2,115 to 2,135 nm. The top 10 wavelengths determined by BSBC were then added to the vegetation indices and reanalyzed using PCA and LDA. Classification accuracies increased for all species when these wavelengths were added rather than using vegetation indices alone, suggesting greater crop and weed species differentiation can be obtained when using sensors that include these wavelength regions of the short wavelength infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Nomenclature: Hemp sesbania, Sesbania exaltata (Raf.) Rydb. ex. A.W. Hill; palmleaf morningglory, Ipomoea wrightii Gray; pitted morningglory, Ipomoea lacunosa L. ; prickly sida, Sida spinosa L. ; sicklepod, Senna obtusifolia (L.) H.S. Irwin & Barnaby; smallflower morningglory, Jacquemontia tamnifolia (L.) Griseb. ; soybean, Glycine max (L.) Merr. ‘Asgrow 4403’
Advertising Arbitrage

When investors have limited attention, an arbitrageur who identifies several mispriced assets will advertise a single asset and overweight it in his portfolio. When several arbitrageurs identify the same arbitrage opportunities, their decisions are strategic complements: they invest in the same asset and advertise it. Then, multiple equilibria may arise, some of which inefficient: arbitrageurs may correct small mispricings while failing to eliminate large ones. Finally, reputation matters: arbitrageurs with a good track record influence prices with their ads more than those with no track record, and even more than arbitrageurs who proved wrong in the past.
The Economics of Super Managers

We study a competitive model in which firm managers differ in terms of ability, and the managers’ actions are private information. Each firm chooses how able a manager to hire, and optimizes the manager’s incentive pay as well as the level of cooperating resources available to the manager. Thus, firm size, managerial talent, and incentives are simultaneously determined in equilibrium. The model can be considered as an amalgam of agency and Superstars, in which the possibility to adjust incentives enhances the firm’s ability to provide a more talented manager with greater cooperating resources, and the ability to adjust cooperating resources enables better incentives. For example, the convexity of firm size as a function of the ability of the manager, the focus of the Superstars model, is increased when incentives are optimized. We study both a homogeneous firm model and a heterogenous firm extension, and find that our results are generally stronger when managers and firms match assortatively by managerial ability and firm productivity. The model delivers many testable implications. Some preliminary empirical results show the model is useful for understanding interesting compensation trends, e.g., CEO pay has recently become more closely associated with firm size. In the model, a closer association is the outcome of demand growth (and/or an inflow of workers). In the twelve Fama-French industries, the industries in which the association between CEO pay and size has increased are also those for which industry sales growth has been greater.
1686) Proposal to conserve the name Cryphonectria (Diaporthales) with a conserved type

1 Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, 3Department of Genetics, Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI), University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, South Africa, marieka.gryzenhout@ fabi.up. ac.za (author of correspondence), Brenda. Wingfield@fabi.up. ac.za, Mike.Wingfield@fabi.up. ac.za. 2National Botanical Institute, KwaZulu-Natal Herbarium, P.O. Box 52099, Berea Road, Durban 4007, South Africa. glenh@nbidbn.co.za.
Water use and pasture growth on Judgeford silt loam

Abstract Water extraction from a friable silt loam under pasture was measured over summer in 1982–83. The soil had a layer at about 0.5 m which was not readily penetrated by pasture roots. Nevertheless, neutron probe measurements showed that, when the soil water deficits were greater than about 90 mm, water was extracted to a depth of 1.4 m. At a deficit of about 120 mm, over 50% of the water was extracted from the top 0.2 m of soil. Leaf extension measurements showed that ryegrass growth decreased at a deficit of about 50 mm and virtually ceased when the deficit was about 140 mm. The leaf growth recommenced rapidly following significant autumn rain. Evapotranspiration was weather-controlled when the soil water deficit was less than about 85 mm, and became controlled by soil water at greater deficits. Plots which had topsoil removed 5 years earlier showed similar patterns of water extraction compared to the control plot.
Establishment of Tabulated Values for Standardized Ileal Digestibility of Crude Protein and Essential Amino Acids in Common Feedstuffs for Pigs

Literature data on apparent ileal digestibility of crude protein (CP) and amino acids in pigs from 79 references (203 observations) including 13 different common feedstuffs, and other data on basal endogenous ileal loss of CP and amino acids from 32 references (36 observations) were analysed statistically. The analyses revealed that the cannulation method as well as the method for determining endogenous ileal losses of CP and amino acids affected the results. After correction for these effects a new set of tabulated values for apparent and standardized ileal digestibility of crude protein and essential amino acids was generated. The results were in most cases in good agreement with three recently published tables for standardized ileal digestibility of amino acids in feedstuffs. Therefore, it was concluded that the data obtained in the present work, together with those given in the recently published tables, would be a suitable basis for a general table for standardized ileal digestibility of CP and amino acids in common feedstuffs for pigs.
Information, Knowledge and Attitudes: An Evaluation of the Taxpayer Receipt

To better understand the relationship between information and political knowledge, we evaluate an ambitious government transparency initiative: the nationwide dissemination of “taxpayer receipts,” or personalized, itemized accounts of government spending, by the UK government in Fall 2014. In coordination with the British tax authorities, we embedded a survey experiment in a nationally representative panel. We find that citizens became significantly more knowledgeable about government spending because of our encouragement to read their receipt. In contrast to previous lab-based studies that have documented knowledge increases, our finding depends on a field-based intervention. Yet even as citizens became more knowledgeable, we uncover no evidence that their attitudes toward government and redistribution changed concomitantly. While citizens are capable of acquiring and retaining complex new political information, their attitudes do not necessarily change as a result. Our results have implications for political knowledge, transparency policy and research on the relationship between knowledge and attitudes.
Robust Econometrics

Econometrics often deals with data under, from the statistical point of view, non-standard conditions such as heteroscedasticity or measurement errors and the estimation methods need thus be either adopted to such conditions or be at least insensitive to them. The methods insensitive to violation of certain assumptions, for example insensitive to the presence of heteroscedasticity, are in a broad sense referred to as robust (e.g., to heteroscedasticity). On the other hand, there is also a more specific meaning of the word `robust`, which stems from the field of robust statistics. This latter notion defines robustness rigorously in terms of behavior of an estimator both at the assumed (parametric) model and in its neighborhood in the space of probability distributions. Even though the methods of robust statistics have been used only in the simplest setting such as estimation of location, scale, or linear regression for a long time, they motivated a range of new econometric methods recently, which we focus on in this chapter.
How to think about planned lead times

A fundamental construct of most planning systems is the planned lead time. A planned lead time is a control parameter that refers to the planned amount of time for a production, transportation or replenishment activity. The intent of this article is to provide a brief, critical examination of planned lead times. We first discuss why planned lead times are used and why they are important. We then discuss the trade-offs to be considered in setting the planned lead times. We follow this with a review of the research literature on how to specify the planned lead times. Finally, we offer a simple model to provide some insight on how the planned lead time for an activity depends on the stochastic variability of the resource requirements for the activity, and on the flexibility and utilisation of the resource associated with the activity.
Online Appendix: Exposure to the COVID-19 Stock Market Crash and its Effect on Household Expectations

A.1 Descriptive evidence on wealth and income shocks The main goal of our survey was to examine how exposure to a stock market crash affects households’ expectations about investment, spending and labor supply. However, our survey also offers a comprehensive real-time snapshot of the financial situation of households in the US during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this section we describe in detail how wealth shocks from the COVID-19 stock market crash are distributed across the population and how they are correlated with income shocks.
Carbohydrate Polymers

An extracellular polysaccharide (PN) composed of mannose:3-O-methyl-galactose:galactose:glucose (44.9:16.3:19.8:19) was obtained from Pleurotus sajor-caju . This polymer showed speciﬁc antioxidant activities such as total antioxidant capacity, superoxide radical scavenging, reducing power and ferric chelating, but it did not possess anticoagulant or antiproliferative activities. Through chemical modiﬁcation of PN, the hydroxyl radical scavenging and reducing power activities of PN increased. A derived sulfated polysaccharide of PN, with a DS of 0.17 and named PS, was obtained using a sulfuric acid/n-propanol method. The sulfation was conﬁrmed by electrophoresis, NMR and FT-IR. In addition, PS prolonged the time of coagulation in a concentration-dependent manner in aPTT test. The antiproliferative effect against HeLa cells was time dependent; after 72h, the inhibition rate of PS (1.0mg/mL) was approximately 60%. PS demonstrated promising antioxidant, antiproliferative and anticoagulant properties and has been selected for further studies.
Global gene expression profiling of Homarus americanus (Crustacea) larval stages during development and metamorphosis

Homarus americanus has a life history that is similar to other arthropods, including a pelagic larval phase and a benthic adult phase. The larval phase is divided into three morphologically distinct stages, followed by metamorphosis to the post-larval phase. H. americanus larval development has been studied previously, although the molecular mechanisms that regulate the consequent changes are not fully elucidated. This study is the first to use an oligonucleotide microarray to investigate global gene expression during H. americanus larval development. Stage-specific gene expression profiles of larvae and postlarvae from two-year classes were assessed. We found the expression levels of 1851 genes to be significantly different among larval stages. Functional annotations indicated that various differentially expressed genes were involved with immune function, energy regulation, and development. Ten target genes of interest were selected for expression verification using RT-qPCR. Two Phosphoenolpyruvatecarboxykinases, Argonaute 2, Ecdysone-inducible protein 75, and Procollagen-lysine 2-oxoglutarate 5-dioxygenase 3, had significantly different expression (p < 0.05) among stages. These genes are involved in translation regulation, gene expression, morphological development and energy metabolism. This study provides a foundation for future investigations regarding signaling, morphological remodeling, energy metabolism, and the immune system as they pertain to larval development.
Aquatic Primary Productivity and the 14C-CO2 Method: A History of the Productivity Problem

Recent appraisals of the primary productivity of the biosphere have concluded that in spite of their vast area, the total annual net production of lakes and oceans is only about one half of the annual production of terrestrial ecosystems (122). The bulk of this production (75%) occurs in the open ocean at a rate of approximately 50 g C m-2 yr-1. The only standard method sufficiently sensitive to measure such low rates of carbon uptake is the radiocarbon (14C-CO2) tracer method first introduced by Steemann Nielsen in 1952. This method has proven so useful that nearly all aquatic ecology laboratories now include it among their standard techniques. However, too few of us who use the method are fully aware of either the vast literature on the 14C method or the implications of this literature for our work. Over the past decade I have used the method extensively and have compared the results with other measures of the carbon budget of natural plankton assemblages. I frequently discovered that different methods did not agree and that the literature was a source of contradiction. Schools of aquatic scientists rarely agree on the use of the method or the interpretation of the results. The frequent suggestion that a standardized procedure at least yields values for primary production valid for comparisons encounters two objections: (a) An absolute value for primary production would be preferable to a relative one, and (b) even the results from a standardized procedure are not compa-
Any Port in a Storm: Import Competition and Match Quality Downgrading

This paper provides clear evidence that increased exposure to import competition from low-income countries results in lower quality matches between workers and firms, using matched employer-employee data from Italy. I measure match quality as the match (worker-firm) fixed effect from a wage regression that includes a rich set of time-varying observables, as well as worker and firm fixed effects. In order to account for the potential endogeneity of industry-level imports, I use low-income countries' import share in a set of other high-income countries as an instrumental variable. Import shocks reduce match quality, shifting the entire distribution of match effects leftward. Additional analysis suggests that workers are more likely to leave high-quality matches because of import competition, implying that good worker-firm matches become relatively less valuable. This finding highlights a new channel through which workers can be negatively affected by trade shocks.
Consequences for biodiversity of reducing inputs to upland temperate pastures: effects on beetles (Coleoptera) of cessation of nitrogen fertilizer application and reductions in stocking rates of sheep

Dennis, P., Doering, J., Stockan, J. A. , Jones, J. R. , Rees, M. E. , Vale, J. E. , Sibbald, A. R. (2004). Consequences for biodiversity of reducing inputs to upland temperate pastures: effects on beetles (Coleoptera) of cessation of nitrogen fertilizer application and reductions in stocking rates of sheep. Grass and Forage Science, 59 (2), 121-135. Sponsorship: SEERAD