Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does Corporate Tax Aggressiveness Matter in Good Corporate Governance-Corporate Financial Performance Relationship? Evidence from Indonesia

This study aims to investigate the direct impact of good corporate governance on corporate financial performance, and, if so, whether the relationship is mediated by corporate tax aggressiveness. This issue is crucial for the Indonesian banking companies because since the year of 2011, management of banking companies have the obligation to implement and report their corporate governance. This study is designed as quantitative research employing the structural equation model. A mediation research model is developed to test the mediation effect of corporate tax aggressiveness on corporate governance and financial performance relationship. The sample is derived from the publicly listed banking firms on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) for the period of 2012-2017 resulting 208 observable empirical data. This study provides empirical evidence that corporate governance has a direct effect on financial performance of publicly listed banks on the IDX. Further analysis reveals that tax aggressiveness mediates the relationship between corporate governance and financial performance. This implies that tax aggressiveness might be one of strategies for banking companies to minimize tax burden in order to increase profit. This study contributes to the growing research exploring tax aggressiveness, especially in banking companies. This study explores the use of tax aggressiveness as the mediation variable and the use of taxable income as one measure of tax aggressiveness.
How do anti-discrimination laws affect firm performance and financial policies? Evidence from the post-World War II period

We exploit the staggered passage of state-level fair-employment laws in the post-World War II period to examine how stronger worker protection against racial discrimination affects firm profitability and financing decisions. We find that firms experience a decline in operating profitability after the passage of anti-discrimination laws. We also document that the adoption of these laws leads to a reduction in debt ratios, which suggests that firms are able to partially offset the negative effects on operating profitability by adjusting their capital structure. Consistent with theoretical predictions, these effects of anti-discrimination laws are more pronounced for firms in states and cities with a greater proportion of African Americans, firms with high labor intensity, firms in states experiencing high African American migration, and firms in concentrated industries. Some of our evidence suggests that anti-discrimination laws lead to a reduction in statistical discrimination or monopsony power rather than taste-based discrimination. Taken together, our results are supportive of theoretical models of discrimination and show that racial discrimination laws significantly affect firm operating performance and financial policies. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, finance.
Risk Shocks, Risk Management and Investment

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects of shocks to idiosyncratic business risk in an economy with endogenously incomplete markets. I develop a model in which firms face idiosyncratic risk and obtain insurance from intermediaries through contracts akin to credit lines. Insurance is imperfect due to limited commitment in financial contracts. Although steady-state capital is higher than if firms were constrained to issue only standard equity, a rise in uncertainty about idiosyncratic business outcomes leads to an endogenous reduction in risk sharing. This deterioration in risk sharing results from a general-equilibrium shortage of pledgeable assets and implies that the economy's response to an increase in idiosyncratic business risk can be amplified by financial contracting rather than dampened. In a parametrized version of the model, a rise in idiosyncratic business risk generates a large increase in uncertainty about aggregate investment.
On the Informational Properties of Trading Networks

We apply network analysis to trace patterns of information transmission in an electronic limit order market. If market orders or large executable limit orders are submitted by informed traders, then resulting star-shaped or diamond-shaped patterns – or trading networks – should be associated with large changes in returns, smaller volume, and short duration between trades. In contrast, the execution of small limit orders from uninformed traders should result in networks with many triangular and reciprocal patterns and be associated with smaller changes in returns, larger volume and longer duration between trades. We compute a time series of trading networks using audit trail, transaction-level data for all regular transactions in the September 2008 E-mini S&P 500 futures contract – the cornerstone of price discovery for the S&P 500 Index. We find that network metrics that quantify the shape of a network are statistically significantly related to returns, volatility, volume, and duration.
Holocene evolution of two ponds on the Devès Plateau in the French Massif Central

The siliceous sub-fossil content (diatoms, chrysophyte cysts, sponges and phytoliths) of two cores was studied to determine the evolution and environmental changes that have occurred since the formation of two fenland lakes, Lac de Collanges and Lac de Freycenet, on the Devès Plateau, Massif Central, France. Cluster analyses determined eight siliceous zones, whereas a detrended correspondence analysis showed similar changes occurring in both sites, and principal component analysis identified four major shifts occurring over time at both sites, corresponding to the establishment of the fenland, the development of a pond and changes in the terrestrial environment. Four classic pollen zones previously determined for the French Massif Central were recorded in the core. The Boreal and beginning of the Old Atlantic period (9445–9250 cal bp) are marked by the development of the fenland, a decrease in pine trees and loss of grassland. The siliceous component was dominated by chrysophyte cysts indicating a cooler and lower trophic level. The Atlantic period (8365–7852 cal bp) saw maximum expansion of the fenland and the first occurrence and dominance of Aulacoseira perglabra (Østrup) Haworth, indicating higher water levels as a result of climate change. Increasing numbers of sponge spicules and the decrease in A. perglabra showed a shift to dryer conditions. During this phase, greater and more frequent droughts occurred in Collanges compared with Freycenet, most likely due to its smaller drainage basin. With the Subboreal, around 5000 cal bp, a change in conditions occurred: A. lacustris (Grunow) Krammer became the most important centric diatom and phytoliths became an important component. Pine trees increased and total herb and grasses became more important. The increase in total herb and grass pollen, along with the major increase in phytoliths, indicated an increase in human agro-pastoral activity within the area. The Subatlantic saw a decrease in water levels with periods of desiccation. A cyclic pattern of wet and dry phases was documented by a diatom increase in regularly moist and mostly moist subaerial environments. Including counts of phytoliths, sponges and chrysophyte cysts with diatoms allows better interpretation of the changes occurring over time within the area and permitted determination of the arrival of human agro-pastoral activity. The other three groups, namely phytoliths, sponges and cysts, were particularly useful when certain samples contained very few or were totally devoid of diatoms.
The transcription factor CREMτ and cAMP regulate promoter activity of the Na,K‐ATPase α4 isoform

The Na,K‐ATPase is an essential enzyme of the plasma membrane that plays a key role in numerous cell processes that depend on the transcellular gradients of Na+ and K+. Among the various isoforms of the catalytic subunit of the Na,K‐ATPase, α4 exhibits the most limited pattern of expression, being restricted to male germ cells. Activity of α4 is essential for sperm function, and α4 is upregulated during spermatogenesis. The present study addressed the transcriptional control of the human Na,K‐ATPase α4 gene, ATP1A4. We describe that a 5′ untranslated region of the ATP1A4 gene (designated −339/+480 based on the ATP1A4 transcription initiation site) has promoter activity in luciferase reporter assays. Computer analysis of this promoter region revealed consensus sites (CRE) for the cyclic AMP (cAMP) response element modulator (CREM). Accordingly, dibutyryl cAMP (db‐cAMP) and ectopic expression of CREMτ, a testis specific splice variant of CREM were able to activate the ATP1A4 promoter driven expression of luciferase in HEK 293 T, JEG‐3 and GC‐1 cells. Further characterization of the effect of db‐cAMP and CREMτ on deleted constructs of the ATP1A4 promoter (−339/+80, and +25/+480), and on the −339/+480 region carrying mutations in the CRE sites showed that db‐cAMP and CREMτ effect required the CRE motif located 263 bp upstream the transcription initiation site. EMSA experiments confirmed the CRE sequence as a bonafide CREMτ binding site. These results constitute the first demonstration of the transcriptional control of ATP1A4 gene expression by cAMP and by CREMτ, a transcription factor essential for male germ cell gene expression. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 73: 1435–1447, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Recovering Income Distributions from Aggregated Data via Micro-Simulations

For the studies of wealth, inequality and poverty, the analysis of income distribution of the individuals is a crucial issue. In practice, however, only aggregated data are available, either in groups or as a few quantiles of the distribution. These may be stratified along characteristics like gender, age, being immigrant, or education. For any scenario (for example to perform counterfactual exercises), it is then desirable to generate samples of micro income data corresponding to the same population structure. Evidently, such a method serves also for the imputation of income densities corresponding to the observed grouped data. If one is provided with quantiles or grouped data of different countries or regions, then this information can be aggregated with a proper weighting (to account for the corresponding population sizes) to obtain the joint income distribution. For the application of our method it is not required to observe the same quantiles or grouping for the different countries or provinces. As an example, this technique can be used to recover the actual or any synthetic world income distribution based on national aggregates.
Reduced parasite diversity and abundance in a marine whelk in its expanded geographical range

To improve our understanding of how parasitism interacts with geographical range expansions by quantifying diversity and abundance of parasites in 25 populations of a large marine snail, Kellet's whelk (Kelletia kelletii), throughout its historical and recently expanded range, which are separated by a well‐known biogeographical boundary.
Protein Identification via Spectral Networks Analysis

Advances in tandem mass-spectrometry (MS/MS) steadily increase the rate of generation of MS/MS spectra. As a result, the existing approaches that compare spectra against databases are already facing a bottleneck, particularly when interpreting spectra of modiﬁed peptides. We introduce a new idea that allows one to perform MS/MS database search . without ever comparing a spectrum against a database. We propose to slightly change the experimental protocol to intentionally generate spectral pairs - pairs of spectra obtained from overlapping (often non-tryptic) peptides or from unmodiﬁed and modiﬁed versions of the same peptide. While seemingly redundant, spectral pairs open up computational avenues that were never explored before. Having a spectrum of a modiﬁed peptide paired with a spectrum of an unmodiﬁed peptide, allows one to separate the preﬁx and sufﬁx ladders, to greatly reduce the number of noise peaks, and to generate a small number of peptide reconstructions that are likely to contain the correct one. The MS/MS database search is thus reduced to extremely fast pattern matching (rather than time-consuming matching of spectra against databases). In addition to speed, our approach provides a new paradigm for identifying post-translational modiﬁcations via spectral networks analysis.
The Effect of Data Availability in Measuring Fund Managers’ After-Tax Alpha

We examine potential sources of measurement error when evaluating the after-tax performance of fund managers based on periodic snapshots of their holdings alone, compared to when daily transactions data are also available. To do this, we compare portfolio return estimates based on imputed trades from monthly, quarterly and semi-annual snapshots with estimates that also incorporate daily trades for a sample of active institutional equity portfolios. This method allows us to directly measure the contribution of interim trading before-tax, while more accurately estimating the tax effects associated with turnover through observing actual trade prices. Further, availability of both trade and holdings data permits the identification of how contributions and tax effects arise from income and capital gains sources, as well as how they vary across investment styles and market conditions.
Supply Chain Competition: A Market Game Approach

We study supply chains where multiple suppliers sell to multiple retailers through a wholesale market. In practice, we often observe that both suppliers and retailers tend to influence the wholesale market price that retailers pay to suppliers. However, existing models of supply chain competition do not capture retailers’ influence on the wholesale price (i.e., buyer power) and show that the wholesale price and the order quantity per retailer do not change with the number of retailers. To overcome this limitation, we develop a competition model based on the market game mechanism in which the wholesale price is determined based on both suppliers’ and retailers’ decisions. When taking into account retailers’ buyer power, we obtain the result that is consistent with the observed practice: As the number of retailers increases, each retailer’s buyer power decreases, and each retailer is willing to pay more for her order, so the wholesale price increases. In this case, supply chain expansion to include more retailers (or suppliers) turns out to be more beneficial in terms of supply chain efficiency than what the prior literature shows without considering buyer power. Finally, we analyze the integration of two local supply chains and show that although the profit of the integrated supply chain is greater than the sum of total profits of local supply chains, integration may reduce the total profit of firms in a retailer-oriented supply chain that has more retailers than suppliers. This paper was accepted by Charles Corbett, operations management.
The Long‐Run Relationship between Stock Prices and GDP in Sweden

In this paper, we investigate the long‐run relationship between stock prices and GDP in Sweden. Using quarterly data from 1995 to 2015, our empirical analysis suggests that the two variables are cointegrated and, hence, that there exists a long‐run equilibrium relationship between them. In light of this long‐run relationship, we estimate a vector error correction model. The estimated model outperforms a simple, but highly relevant, alternative method in an out‐of‐sample forecast exercise. It also provides information as to whether Swedish stocks are correctly valued. Results indicate that stocks in Sweden might be overvalued at the end of the sample and forecasts from the model suggest that the disequilibrium will generate a modest development in the stock market over a number of quarters.
The Discrete Wigner Function a

In nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, any spatial quantum state, as opposed to a spin state, can be represented by a real function on classical phase-space known as the Wigner f ~ n c t i 0 n . I ~ The Wigner function has a number of special properties that make it a convenient object on which to base a formulation of quantum mechanics, but it is limited in that it applies only to continuous degrees of freedom such as position and not to inherently discrete degrees of freedom such as spin. The main purpose of this paper is to present a generalization of the Wigner function that applies to systems having only a finite number of orthogonal states. As we shall see, when one writes the laws of quantum mechanics in terms of this generalized Wigner function, the theory looks quite different from what we are accustomed to. The familiar complex vector space is not in obvious view. Instead, the basic mathematical entity on which the theory is built is the phase-space, which in the simplest discrete cases is a two-dimensional vector space over a finite field. This formulation of quantum mechanics suggests an interesting way of viewing the relationship between quantum theory and ordinary probability theory: the latter is obtained from the former by collapsing the two-dimensional phase-space down to one dimension. We can also imagine starting from quantum theory and going the other direction: Do there exist systems whose phase-space is three-dimensional? We explore both of these points in the last two sections of this paper. In generalizing the Wigner function, we are guided by the following property, which we would like to preserve to as great an extent as possible when we go to the discrete case. Consider the usual Wigner function of a spinless particle in one spatial dimension. Imagine a complete set of parallel lines in the two-dimensional phase-space. The equations for these lines are of the form, aq + bp = c, where a and b are constants, q and p are position and momentum, respectively, and c is a number that varies from line to line and takes all possible real values. Now integrate the Wigner function over each of these parallel lines. The result of the integration is a function of the one variable, c. Remarkably, this function is none other than the probability distribution one would obtain by measuring (on an ensemble described by the given Wigner
US Monetary Regimes and Optimal Monetary Policy in the Euro Area

Monetary policy in the US has been documented to have switched from reacting weakly to inflation fluctuations during the ‘70s, to fighting inflation aggressively from the early ‘80s onwards. In this paper, I analyze the impact of the US monetary policy regime switches on the Eurozone. I construct a New Keynesian two-country model where foreign (US) monetary policy switches regimes over time. I estimate the model for the US and the Euro Area using quarterly data and find that the US has switched between those two regimes, in line with existing evidence. I show that foreign regime switches affect home (Eurozone) inflation and output volatility and their responses to shocks, substantially, as long as the home central bank commits to a time invariant interest rate rule reacting to domestic conditions only. Optimal policy in the home country instead requires that the home central bank reacts strongly to domestic producer price inflation and to international variables, like imported goods relative prices. In fact, I show that currency misalignments and relative prices play a crucial role in the transmission of foreign monetary policy regime switches internationally. Interestingly, I show that only marginal gains arise for the Euro Area when the ECB adjusts its policy according to the monetary regime in the US. Thus, a simple time-invariant monetary policy rule with a strong reaction to PPI inflation and relative prices is enough to counteract the effects of monetary policy switches in the US.
The Dark Side of Bank CEO Risk-taking Incentives: Evidence from Bank Lending Decisions

This paper investigates how bank CEO risk-taking incentives influence bank lending decisions. Consistent with the existing CEO incentive literature, we find that CEOs with higher risk-taking incentives (vega) tend to relax their lending standards in bank loan contracts to pursue higher compensation. We find that banks with a high vega tend to charge a significantly lower loan spread, demand fewer loan covenants, and have lower probability to seek collateral. Results become weaker when banks have strong corporate governance mechanisms, supporting the proposition that high CEO risk-taking incentives may create an agency problem between a bank manager and shareholders.
Temporal Market Evolution of Interactive Games

Massive multiplayer online games (MMOG) are the most commercially successful computer game genre during the last two decades. Many MMOGs base their business model on monthly subscription fees. Hence, future prediction of the number of players subscribing to a given MMOG is a crucial parameter for estimating the success and valuation of the MMOG. This paper develops analytical models that estimate the number of users playing a given MMOG. The models include three categories of games: (1) simple games, in which the popularity of the game is independent of other games offered in the market; (2) competitive games, in which the player may choose between the same or similar games from different suppliers; (3) complementary games, in which one of the games is complementary to another game increasing (or reducing) its popularity. Analytic solutions are found for some simple games. The paper draws some general conclusions concerning the temporal evolution of games, for example, that there are games in which all potential players will join the game at some time and that there are other games in which some potential players never will join the game. Another general observation is that there are games where there must exist initial players to trigger the game to start growing. Some of the models with analytical tractable solutions are too simple to predict the exact temporal evolution of real games. Therefore, the paper shows how the more advanced models may be analyzed using system dynamic simulation models which accurately convert the set of differential equations describing the various games into simple simulation models. In fact, the system dynamic model solves the set of differential equations for the various games without resorting to intractable numerical solution methods for large sets of nonlinear differential equations. The paper also demonstrates that the real evolution of games such as World of Warcraft and RuneScape can be reproduced using system dynamics. This implies that system dynamics may be used to analyze different strategies before the game is marketed or for enhancing the market penetration of an ongoing game.
Social Mobility in Pre-Industrial China: Reconsidering the 'Ladder of Success' Hypothesis

We test with data whether social mobility existed in late imperial China (1796-1905 AD) through its civil examination system. We find that measures of ability consistently predict the highest level of exam — jinshi — success, while direct measures of wealth do not. However, in addition to the significance of the father’s education, the official rank of one’s father and ancestors, which we use to proxy for family-specific tacit knowledge (or “cultural capital”), also strongly predicts actual exam performance. Thus, while unwittingly facilitated mobility, the civil examination system still transmitted hidden advantages among those possessed with endowments beyond that of human capital.