Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Untying the Gordian Knot: Interconnectedness, stability and the post-crisis reforms

‘Interconnectedness’ was considered to be a cause of the 2008 financial crisis, stimulating a number of studies into the topology of financial markets. Yet the analysis of instability within networks has tended to focus on a type of ‘contagion’ which imagines serial insolvencies, with non-performance of due obligations causing solvency issues for connected institutions. A more realistic assessment of the 2008 crisis was that it was due to a drying-up of available cash. A taxonomy of contagion is proposed, and the illiquidity model of contagion is then analyzed with reference to the observed core-periphery structure of financial market networks. Finally, the post-crisis reforms are judged against the view of ‘interconnectedness’ which emerges.
The Market Impact of Systemic Risk Capital Surcharges

This paper tests whether an increase or decrease of the capital surcharge for being a global systemically important bank (G-SIB) envisaged by regulators has an impact on the CDS prices of these banks. We find evidence that the CDS spreads of a G-SIB bank increase (decrease) after the announcement of a higher (lower) capital surcharge. However, this effect is temporary, as the mean CDS spreads revert to pre-announcement level, dropping sharply after the initial rise. Our analysis contributes to the debate on whether being designated as a G-SIB bank necessarily leads to implicit "too-big-to-fail" subsidies. The findings imply that the investors immediately update their beliefs on the systemic risk of the bank after the bucket reallocation announcement and temporarily demand more hedging against systemic risk.
IPO lockups and insider trading

We examine directors’ and PE firms’ sales and purchases before and after lockup expiry in a sample of 223 UK IPOs, during the period 1999-2014. Director and PE firms’ purchases exhibit a positive and significant price impact. Overall, the price effect of director sales and purchases is stronger compared to the price effect of PE firm deals. Majority (75%) of PE firms sell their locked shares in instalments. When they sell for the first time, PE firms adopt contrarian strategy only for complete exits (i.e. sales). For subsequent sales, PE firms follow contrarian strategies only for partial sales. Among different types of directors, founders’ purchases and CEOs’ sales produce strongest price effects. JEL classification: D82, G12, G14, G15, G24
Do Government Subsidies Affect Income Smoothing?

This study examines the relationship between government subsidies and income smoothing using a sample of US listed firms. We find that subsidized firms smooth their earnings more aggressively than their unsubsidized peers, consistent with firms that receive subsidies bearing higher political costs and having more incentives to smooth earnings to avoid public attention. Smoothing by subsidized firms is more pronounced when the subsidies are granted through non-tax-related channels than tax-based channels, and for firms with more opaque information environments. In addition, smoothing by subsidized firms reduces the ability of current earnings to predict future cash flows. Using textual content analysis, we find that the MD&As of subsidized firms provide less explanatory content to explain accruals, consistent with smoothing being used to obfuscate earnings. Overall, our results shed light on how government subsidies shape the accounting and disclosure choices of firms.
Robots at the Tropics∗

In recent years, a growing concern has emerged regarding the potential effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotization on firms, and even more specifically on workers and the risks for their displacement (Brynjolfsson and McAfee, 2014; Acemoglu and Restrepo, 2017; Graetz and Michaels, 2015, among others). The emphasis of current research studies has been driven by the rapid decrease in the prices of robots, that according to Graetz and Michaels (2015) fell by 2005 to one fifth of its 1990 level adjusting for quality. Consequently, utilization of robots has increased in a wide range of different industries, with the operational stock of robots doubled between 2005 and 2016, reaching 1,828,024 units by the end of 2016 and expected to reach three millions by 2020 (International Federation of Robotics, 2017).
Survival and Pricing Puzzles

This paper argues that imperfect information concerning defaulted companies generates pricing puzzles. We show that companies with higher survival display a discount relative to lower survival ones, when they differ only in mortality. Consistent with this argument, we find that discounted diversified conglomerates survive more, on average, than focused firms. The conglomerate discount widens from 5.6% to 13.3% when measured on companies with increasing survival probability.
Echocardiographic evaluation of asymptomatic left ventricular diastolic dysfunction in type 2 diabetes mellitus

Background: Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder and is a fast growing global epidemic with widespread physical, mental, social and economical consequences. The first stage of diabetic cardiomyopathy is represented by left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (LVDD) with preserved systolic function in an asymptomatic individual. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of asymptomatic LVDD in type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) patients and to study the relationship between LVDD and age, duration of diabetes and glycemic control. Methods: This was a prospective case control and observational hospital-based study conducted on 200 subjects, 100 cases of type 2 DM aged 35-65 years with duration of diabetes more than 5 years and 100 ageand sex-matched controls without diabetes. Transthoracic 2D echocardiography (ECHO) was performed on all the subjects to detect the presence of LVDD. The data was compiled and tabulated to explore the association between DM and its various components with LVDD. Chi square test was used to test the significance of association. Results: LVDD was more prevalent in the study group patients as compared to controls (74% versus 18%). Presence of LVDD showed positive correlation with duration of diabetes, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C) and presence of albuminuria, and negative correlation with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Conclusions: LVDD is quite prevalent in type 2 DM as compared to general population and is a marker of evolving heart disease among diabetics. Presence of LVDD in diabetics increases with duration of disease, poor glycemic control, presence of albuminuria and worsening of GFR. Early diagnosis and treatment of LVDD in diabetic patients may reduce cardiovascular morbidity by preventing future development of heart failure in these patients.
Delegated Investment in a Dynamic Agency Model∗

We analyze a continuous-time principal-agent model where, in addition to managing the day-to-day business, the agent has to invest in the firm’s future profitability. The interaction of both tasks endogenously creates distortions in delegated investment, which depend on past performance as well as the profitability of the investment technology. Delegated investment is distorted upwards relative to firstbest for highly profitable technologies and distorted downwards for less profitable ones. These distortions decrease in past performance giving rise to either positive or negative investment-cash-flow sensitivities. Implications for the dynamics of compensation as well as the impact of better corporate governance are discussed.
Do Banks Compete on Non-Price Terms? Evidence from Loan Covenants

We investigate the link between competition in credit markets and non-price loan terms, specifically financial covenants. We exploit regulation in the leveraged loan market as variation in banks' ability to offer covenant-lite loans. As regulated banks demand relatively more covenants, borrowers switch to unregulated lenders, or shadow banks, leading to a decline in aggregate banks' market share. Results are not driven by lower loan supply or changes in other loan terms, and reflect a relation between lax covenants and loan growth in the broader lending market. Our findings encourage regulators to internalize non-price competition between regulated and unregulated sectors.
Personal factors affecting intentions of safe vegetable purchases in Danang City, Vietnam

This study determined the relationships between personal factors and intentions of safe vegetable purchases in Danang City, Vietnam. The study added two new factors, communication and awareness of responsiveness of supermarkets, which are correlated to purchase intentions of consumers. Consumer behaviours was surveyed in Danang City from April to June 2019, and analysed by a multivariate regression model. The result indicated that the intentions of safe vegetable purchases were associated with several factors such as perception of benefit - environment, perception of quality, subjective norms, awareness of supermarket responsiveness, barriers and habits. Unlike previous studies, this study found that the awareness of supermarket responsiveness and active communication of customers is statistically strongly correlated to safe vegetable purchases in Da Nang City. The findings suggested some implications for policy makers, authorities, and consumers in promoting behaviors of purchasing safe vegetables.
Cost behavior and bond yield spreads

We provide first-time evidence that the bond market is sensitive to firms’ asymmetric cost behavior. More specifically, we show that bond yield spreads increase with cost stickiness. The effect of cost stickiness on bond yield spreads is stronger at short-maturities, when investors are pessimistic about the firm’s prospects, when the firm is operated less efficiently, and when it is operated in a less competitive product market. Given the size of the bond market and its prominence in external financing, the evidence that bond issuers with stickier cost pay higher risk premiums has important implications for our understanding of credit risk pricing and the economic consequences of asymmetric cost behavior.
The Moderating Role of Democratization Culture: Improving Agility through the Use of Big Data Analytics

Big data analytics (BDA) is considered an enabler of agility by helping organizations perform more informed and faster decision making. To achieve agility, firms need a backbone of stability, such as organizational culture. However, there is a dearth of research examining the relationship among agility, BDA use and organizational culture. In this regard, considering increasing attention given to data democratization in business, this paper introduces ‘democratization culture’ which values sharing of knowledge and acceptance of diversity. Assuming organizational culture as a contextual factor, our research examines the moderating effect of democratization culture on the relationship between BDA use and agility. Also, BDA use is classified into advanced and basic use based on functions and BDA types. Research model is empirically validated through data collected from 304 senior-level managers, confirming that democratization culture has different moderating effects, depending on whether agility is influenced by advanced or basic use of BDA.
Assessment of allelopathic potential of Aphanamixis polystachya on selected field crops.

Purpose: Aphanamixis polystachya (Wall.) R.N. Parker, belonging to Meliaceae family is very well known for its medicinal properties. But its allelopathic potentiality not yet has been reported. Hence, aqueous extracts of different parts of Aphanamixis polystachya were examined to investigate their allelopathic potentiality. Research Method: Different parts of A. polystachya extracts at four different concentrations (1:5, 1:10, 1:15 and 1:20 (w/v)) along with control (distilled water without extracts) were tested against jute, mungbean, mustard, radish, rice, wheat and tomato. The experiments were conducted following completely randomized design with three replicates. Findings: Among the test crop species, shoot growth of mustard was most sensitive (43% average inhibition (a.i.)) followed by radish (41% a.i.) to the extracts of different parts of A. polystachya. , whereas shoot growth of tomato (14% a.i.) was less sensitive to the extracts followed by rice (25% a.i.) and mungbean (29% a.i.). Root growth of radish was most sensitive (41% a.i.) species followed by mustard (39% a.i.) and jute (36% a.i.) to the extract of different parts of A. polystachya. Root growth of mungbean (13% a.i.) was less sensitive to the extracts followed by tomato (18% a.i.) and rice (20% a.i.). Among the plant parts, leaf showed most phytotoxic activity on the shoot growth (41%) and twig on the root (40%) growth of the test plants. However, stem extract was less sensitive to both shoot and root growth of the test species. These results confirm that A. polystachyahas allelopathic properties and may possess allelochemicals. Research limitations: There was no significant limitation to the report. Originality/Value: To the best of our knowledge this is the first report about the allelopathic potential of Aphanamixis polystachya.
Sustainable Competitiveness in Spanish Employee- Owned Firms

In this paper we analyze a special type of employee-owned firms, namely employee-owned limited liability firms (EOLLFs), which receive some tax and financial benefits to help increase job creation in a country affected by high unemployment rates. EOLLFs must comply with certain conditions to take advantage of those benefits. We argue that these conditions impose important limitations on their long-term growth and performance. We compare the evolution of EOLLFs with that of other independent closely-held private limited liability firms over a long period of time, which includes both economic upturns and downturns. We find that EOLLFs invest less, have lower capital and human resources, grow less and show lower performance than other independent closely-held private limited liability firms. We argue that regulatory restrictions derive in negative consequences that outweigh the positive effects expected by most authors in the relationship between employee-ownership and performance. JEL codes: L25, J54, L26.
An Empirical Investigation Into the Relative Importance of Stock Picking Vis-A-Vis Indexing in the UK Equity Markets Over the Period 1991-2005

The purpose of this study is to examine the prevalence of stock picking in UK equities over the period 1991-2005. We describe a metric to analyse trading activity and volumes in the UK FTSE350 and AIM markets, with emphasis on industrial and sizebased effects. Our findings indicate that active stock picking has been consistently declining in the UK market over the period studied for all markets, size quintiles and in virtually every industrial sector. Trading patterns reveal a pronounced size effect in stock picking, and an increase in indexing over time for the AIM but higher overall levels of stock picking relative to the FTSE350 list. EFM Classification: 350, 370
CEO Compensation and Real Estate Prices: Are CEOs Paid for Pure Luck?

We study the sensitivity of CEO compensation to luck using real estate prices to differentiate changes in compensation due to pure luck from changes in compensation due to reactions to lucky events. We find that that pay for luck is explained mostly by reactions to lucky events rather than pure luck. Our identification relies on the fact that changes in real estate prices affect market performance irrespective of managerial actions, while accounting performance is only affected if the manager reacts to the shock. In addition, our findings suggest that firms anticipate pay for luck associated with real estate holdings and offer less equity-based compensation, and compensation more sensitive to accounting performance to CEOs that are more exposed to the real estate market. Interestingly, our results are not explained by corporate governance. Our results are consistent with the contracting view that CEOs are not rewarded for pure luck.
Using index models for heavy metal pollution estimation of sediments from Bomu and Oginigba rivers

Sediments collected from Bomu and Oginigba rivers were treated according to recommended standards and subsequently analyzed for heavy metals and further tested with index models. The results showed that all the metals examined were higher than the recommended upper limits in sediments by China and USEPA except lead in the Oginigba River and cadmium in both rivers. In both rivers, all the metals, copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr) and zinc (Zn) fell within the category of heavily polluted, lead (Pb) in the sediment from the Oginigba River was moderately polluted and cadmium (Cd) showed no indication of contamination/pollutionin any of the sediments from the rivers. The order of the concentration of the heavy metals in the sediments was Zn> Ni > Cr >Cu>Pb>Cd. Contamination factor (Cf) analysis showed that the sediments from both rivers were free from Cd pollution, slightly polluted with Cu and Cr and moderately polluted with Ni, Zn and Pb. Pollution load index (PI) results showed that Bomu River sediments were moderately polluted while Oginigba river sediments were slightly polluted by the metals. Geo-accumulation index (I-geo) measurements showed that sediments from both rivers are free from pollution by the metals. Ecological risk factor and ecological risk assessment of the sediments from both rivers indicated that both aquatic environments are free from ecological risk. However, the results suggested that there is the possibility of a near future or long run pollution. Therefore, adequate measures should be put in place to monitor thes environments.
What Determines the Acceptance of Cryptocurrency in Malaysia? An Analysis based on UTAUT2

The nascent blockchain technology that sparked the advent of cryptocurrency has been receiving heightened attention from practitioners and scholars. With the unpredictable cryptocurrency value, the controversy surrounding the cryptocurrency hype remains vigorous. However, less academic research has investigated the individual cryptocurrency acceptance behavior, especially in developing country context. Drawing on the literature on blockchain, cryptocurrency, e-banking and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology2 (UTAUT2), this paper aims to propose a model that integrates cryptocurrency dimension antecedents and UTAUT2 constructs to examine the factors that influence individual cryptocurrency acceptance behavior in Malaysia. This study employs a quantitative approach by collecting online survey questionnaire data to evaluate the proposed model using partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach. This paper appears as a valuable contribution that provides regulators and cryptocurrency practitioners a high-level overview of potential individual cryptocurrency acceptance factors.
Recovery of physical functioning after total hip arthroplasty

Background: In the field of rehabilitation, patients are supposed to be experts on their own lives, but the patient’s own desires in this respect are often not reported. Our objectives were to describe the patients’ desires regarding functional improvements before and after total hip arthroplasty (THA). Methods: Sixty-four patients, 34 women and 30 men, with a mean age of 65 years, were asked to describe in free text which physical functions they desired to improve. They were asked before surgery and at three and 12 months after surgery. Each response signified one desired improvement. The responses were coded according to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) to the 1, 2 and 3 category levels. The frequency of the codes was calculated as a percentage of the total number of responses of all assessments times and in percentage of each time of assessment. Results: A total of 333 responses were classified under Part 1 of the ICF, Functioning and Disability, and 88% of the responses fell into the Activities and Participation component. The numbers of responses classified into the Activities and Participation component were decreasing over time (p < 0.001). The categories of Walking (d450), Moving around (d455), and Recreation and leisure (d920) included more than half of the responses at all the assessment times. At three months after surgery, there was a trend that fewer responses were classified into the Recreation and leisure category, while more responses were classified into the category of Dressing (d540). Conclusions: The number of functional improvements desired by the patients decreased during the first postoperative year, while the content of the desires before and one year after THA were rather consistent over time and mainly concerned with the ability to walk and participate in recreation and leisure activities. At three months, however, there was a tendency that the patients were more concerned about the immediate problems with putting on socks and shoes.
Persistence in the Face of Change: Effects of Human Recreation on Coyote (Canis latrans) Habitat Use in an Altered Ecosystem

We investigated the spatiotemporal relationship of Canis latrans Say (Coyote) with environmental and human recreation variables in an altered Eucalyptus ecosystem in California, USA using camera traps and vegetation surveys. We documented Coyotes at eight of nine camera trap sites, and our top a-priori model to explain Coyote spatial use included tree density and abundance of human recreationists as explanatory variables (wAICc = 0.98). We found low temporal overlap between humans and Coyotes (Δ4 = 0.40), with Coyote activity peaking around 4 am when humans were not active. This appears to be a shift in Coyote temporal activity to avoid humans, as Coyotes typically exhibit crepuscular activity cycles. Coyotes appeared able to adjust to the altered ecosystem, and instead their spatial use and temporal activity was most affected by human recreation.
Why Are Commercial Loan Rates So Sticky? The Effect of Private Information on Loan Spreads

Past studies find that commercial loan spreads are “sticky,” in the sense that they do not fully respond to changes in market rates or observable firm credit risk characteristics. In this paper, we provide evidence that the appearance of stickiness arises, in part, because the intensity of bank screening varies inversely with changes in credit market conditions and observable firm credit risk characteristics. Our analysis demonstrates that stickiness in loan spreads does not necessarily indicate loan mispricing.
Speculation-Driven Business Cycles

Speculation, in the spirit of Harrison and Kreps [1978], is introduced into a standard real business cycle model. Investors (speculators) hold heterogeneous beliefs about firm growth. Firm ownership, and thus, the firm’s discount factor varies with waves of optimism and leverage. These waves ripple into firm investments in hours. The firm’s discount factor links the equity premium and labor volatility puzzles. We obtain an upper bound to the amplification that can be generated by speculation for any model of beliefs – a factor of 1.5. A calibration based on diagnostic beliefs amplifies hours volatility by a factor of 1.15 and produces a bubble component of 20 percent