Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
To Kill a Black Swan: The Credibility Revolution at CEDE, 2000-2018

The growing displacement of theory and other forms of wide-ranging knowledge of social phenomena by empirical research methods in economics is widely noted by economists and historians of economic knowledge. Less attention has been devoted, however, to understand the materialization of such changes in the scientific practices in a specific research center. This article studies the recent transformations in the epistemological practices at CEDE, a research center that is both, highly influential in the production of economic knowledge in Colombia, and does not belong to the core economics research centers that lead the debates regarding the recent changes in the discipline. I use a machine learning technique called Topic Modeling, interviews to CEDE researchers, and exegesis of papers to identify a shift in the production of knowledge in microeconometrics at CEDE during the years 2000 and 2018. I explain this shift by characterizing two sets of epistemological practices. The first one, usually present during the years 2000 and 2006, establishes a complementary relationship between wide-ranging knowledge (theory included) and data estimation techniques in order to achieve a broad comprehension of the phenomenon under study. The second one, usually present during the years 2009 and 2018, prioritizes data estimation techniques over theoretical models and contextual knowledge in order to achieve a causal comprehension of one variable in the phenomenon under study. Because epistemological practices make truth claims, each one establishes its own criteria about what constitutes a valid research through a distinct way of replicating a scientific experiment. The shift I identify implies a recent tendency to disdain research works that cannot make a strong causal inference.
How to Assess the Development of Entrepreneurship Education at University Level – The Case of Denmark

In this book chapter we describe how Denmark’s eight universities have developed their supply of entrepreneurship education during the past three years. The governmental initiatives that aim to promote entrepreneurial universities, and the Danish context, are presented and related to this development. An assessment model of entrepreneurship education which includes the wide scope of dimensions important to education in the topic, such as content dimensions, stages in the entrepreneurial project and pedagogical dimensions is presented. By applying this model we have been able to analyse the strengths and weaknesses in the supply of entrepreneurship education at the eight universities. The results show that the Danish universities have developed well regarding entrepreneurship education, especially on the pedagogical dimensions which means that more courses are becoming through and for entrepreneurship, rather than about entrepreneurship. The dominance of universities with business schools do, however, suggest that entrepreneurship education in Denmark is far from reaching maturity. Our results also suggest that it is important to focus on how to sustain the supply of entrepreneurship education rather than just invest in new course development.
Open Price Contracts, Locked-In Buyers, and Opportunism

There is a large literature on incomplete contracts, but one prominent type of incomplete contract has largely gone unnoticed. An "open price contract" is one in which a buyer commits to purchasing goods from a seller even though the price has not been agreed upon at the time of signing. Open price contracts generally give the seller the right to set prices ex post, and the buyer is then obligated to purchase from the seller at those prices. This gives rise to obvious incentives for short-run opportunistic pricing by the seller, but also obvious disincentives from long-run reputational consequences. In this article, we focus on a specific application where open price contracts are common, discuss why buyers enter into such contracts, and test for opportunistic ex-post pricing by sellers on their locked-in buyers. We find that opportunistic incentives are dominated by long-run reputational incentives and to a surprising degree.
Fundamentals of high-pressure oxygen and low-pressure oxygen-peroxide (Eop) delignification of softwood and hardwood kraft pulps: a comparison

Dans le but d'elucider et de comparer les changements fondamentaux qui surviennent dans les pâtes kraft de resineux et de feuillus durant les stades de delignification a l'oxygene a haute pression et a l'oxygene-peroxyde a basse pression (Eop), nous avons prepare deux pâtes kraft conventionnelles faites de ces essences et les avons delignifiees dans des conditions similaires. Les lignines residuelles provenant des pâtes kraft non traitees, les pâtes delignifiees par les stades a l'oxygene et Eop, de meme que les lignines dissoutes dans leurs liqueurs respectives furent isolees et etudiees a l'aide d'analyses detaillees et de la spectroscopie quantitative 31 P NMR. La spectroscopie quantitative 31 P NMR, faisant appel au 2-chloro-4,4,5,5-tetramethyl-1,3,2-dioxaphospholane comme agent de phosphitilisation, nous a permis de determiner les unites phenoliques condensees et non condensees dans ces lignines techniques. Les resultats de cette technique se comparent a ceux de la degradation oxydative. Nous avons observe que la formation des acides carboxyliques et la degradation des structures phenoliques condensees etaient les principaux processus pouvant causer la dissolution de la lignine durant les stades de delignification a l'oxygene ou Eop. Comme une degradation significative des unites phenoliques condensees et non condensees accompagnait les stades a l'oxygene et Eop, nous pensons que la formation d'acides carboxyliques compense sans doute l'elimination des groupes d'hydroxyles phenoliques en maintenant les fragments de lignine suffisamment hydrophiles pour en assurer la dissolution dans le milieu alcalin. Les unites phenoliques non condensees de la lignine residuelle de pâte kraft de feuillus reagissaient plus efficacement que celles des pâtes de resineux durant les stades de delignification a l'oxygene et Eop. Les considerations chimiques et physicochimiques qui affectent l'efficacite d'un stade a l'oxygene et d'un stade Eop sont similaires. Toutefois, compte tenu de la nature plus douce du stade Eop, les lignines residuelles qui en decoulent sont moins affectees que les lignines traitees a l'oxygene a haute pression
Portfolio Construction with LASSO

It is well known that standard Markowitz portfolio optimization suffers from empirical instability. Brodie, Daubechies, De Mol, Giannone, and Loris (2009) show that inclusion of an L1 penalty term in the optimization leads to sparse and stable solutions. The L1 penalty term can be used to model transaction costs and gross leverage and offers a way to control the trade-off between Sharpe ratio and implementation constraints such as turn over, transaction costs and gross leverage. The methodology can be useful to institutional investors in construction of target-return portfolios and replication of illiquid assets. I compare Standard Markowitz optimization, LASSO optimization and equal volatility weighting approaches to portfolio construction using a practical case study and show that LASSO optimization is superior to the other two approaches.
Theory of Government Venture Capital

Government-sponsored venture capitalists (GVCs) play an important role in most successful venture capital (VC) markets. This paper offers the first theory on GVCs. We investigate the role of government in VC markets, where private venture capitalists (PVCs) dominate. We find that PVCs offer better incentives, while GVCs address risks better; PVCs are more efficient in financing superior ventures, while GVCs are more efficient in financing inferior ventures; and there are ventures that are socially no-viable if financed by PVCs but are socially viable if financed by GVCs.
Commuting Behaviours and the Gender Pay Gap

In this paper, we investigate whether gender differences in the willingness to commute may explain part of the gender pay gap. To test whether women tend to favor jobs with shorter commutes at the expense of pay, we examine whether the reasons for job separation differ between men and women, focusing on the role of hourly pay and commuting time. We find that commuting time has a greater impact on the decision to leave one’s job for women than men whereas hourly rate has a greater impact for men than women. Addressing the gender pay gap would involve tackling the reasons why women accept lower wages in exchange for greater flexibility and shorter commutes.
Information Integrity, Security and Online Banking Utility

Organizations have considered Information Security mechanisms as prescriptive of the adequate utilization of the Internet Banking Interface. Although Information Integrity propels the link between Information Security and Utility of the Internet Banking Interface, we have only anecdotal or speculative evidence. In this context, we developed a systematic framework to test the postulated "Information Security Information Integrity-Internet Banking Interface Utility" chain. To this end, considering the responses from a sample of retail Online Banking users, the mediating role of Information Integrity in the Information Security – Internet Banking Interface Utility is empirically tested and substantiated, using Structural Equation Modeling.
Service Quality in Banks - A SEM Technique with AMOS

Consumer behavior has always been an interesting subject for marketers. With the constant increase of market, banking sector is one of the fastest growing sectors in India. This study examines the satisfaction level of consumer on major National banks, Private Banks and Foreign bank in India and services provided by them. It also provides a functional comparison of the two different approaches in terms of SERVQUAL model. The study also analyzes the relationship between deliverance of services and actual customer expectation with the help of factor analysis and regression analysis in SEM. This study will provide important insights to banks in redefining their corporate image to one that is customer-focused and driven by service quality. The findings of the study also suggest after evaluation of intrinsic and extrinsic cues of consumers from cross sections differ in evaluating a bank’s performance and expectation of the end users. The results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) highlighted the precedence areas of service instrument. The gap scores show that there is ample extent for improvement in all the aspects related to service quality. SEM and estimation has proposed by AMOS.
The Decision by Management to Disclose Environmental Information: A Research Note Based on Interviews

The question that was considered in this research was why management discloses environmental information given the fact that it is not required by law in South Africa. The person closest to the decision to report environmental information and the decision of what type of environmental information to report, in six different organisations, where interviewed using a questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions. The responses were analysed for commonality. Although respondents seldom explicitly referred to pressure, it was clear that this was a major reason for environmental disclosure. Some of the reasons for reporting that was heard often were accountability, transparency , peers did it and to stop the bad news reported by others. The fact that external pressure plays such a large part in the disclosure decision reminds one of legitimacy theory.
The Impact of R&D Sources on New Product Development: Sources of Funds and the Diversity Versus Control Debate

We build on the knowledge-based view to study the relative impact of alternative sources of RD another is that control of knowledge is better, because the incentive and contextual system of the firm facilitates employees’ experimentation, which leads to novel products. We clarify this debate by contrasting both arguments and arguing that their relative importance depends on the sources of finance to fund innovation. We find that in general control is relatively better than diversity for the sale of new products. However, we also find that alternative sources of finance moderate the relationships: internal funds strengthen the impact of R&D sources with more knowledge diversity on the sale of new products, while the use of external funds strengthens the impact of R&D sources with more knowledge control on the sale of new products.
Common Ownership in the Dutch Banking Market

Common ownership has increased across countries and industries in recent years. I focus on the potential anti-competitive effects of rising common ownership on consumer prices conducting a case study for the Dutch banking market. My analysis draws on retail pricing data for savings accounts in 2014 and ownership data on the investor level. Using a structural approach, I project the impact of increasing common ownership on interest rates for savings accounts. Depending on the different levels of common ownership assumed, I simulate decreases in interest rates of up to 50 basis points for large banks and predict substantial average losses of interest for consumers ranging between 12 and 33 euros per year.
Understanding Big Data: Data Calculus in the Digital Era

Information processing has been defined as “the change (processing) of information in any manner detect- able by an observer, a process that describes everything that happens in the universe, from the falling of a rock to the printing of a text file from a digital computer system. ” Human society has long realized that information processing and sharing are essential to the pursuit of physical, social, and economic well-being. Knowing and sharing information about one’s surroundings is essential to success in the physical world. Knowing and sharing information about one’s “neighbors” is essential to success in the social world. “Knowing-your-customers” (KYC) in order to serve them well is the supreme norm for success in the business world. Sharing that information – the Yellow Pages practice that makes certain personal information, such as name, telephone number, and address public – has become a tradition in modern human relations. <br><br>The pervasive use of digitized information has reached a new height that we call the era of "big data. " While this has led to unprecedented societal cooperation, it has also intensified three major concerns: How can we properly protect personal privacy in the age of big data? How do we understand and manage the ownership and distribution of benefits and risks arising from the use of data? Will the use of big data lead to "winner-take-all" markets that undermine competition to the detriment of consumers and society? These are the subjects of this report. <br><br>We focus on analyzing concrete evidence about "big data" to draw conclusions on its impact. As Nobel Laureate Ronald Coase (1994) suggested, it is important to step away from pure "blackboard economics" that tends to only live in [a theoretician's] mind: "what we need is more empirical work . An inspired theoretician might do as well without such empirical work, but . the inspiration is most likely to come through the stimulus provided by the patterns, puzzles, and anomalies revealed by the systematic gathering of data, particularly when the prime need is to break our existing habits of thought. "<br><br>This viewpoint is particularly relevant because, unlike many production inputs, data has the properties of non-rivalry and non-separability. Unless an evidence-based, integrated and multi-stakeholder approach is adopted, users can be unintentionally hurt in the name of protection. We don’t want to "dismember the goose that laid the golden egg. "
Investigation of the swelling of cotton fibers using aqueous glycine solutions

The treatment of cotton fibers using different chemicals, such as alkalis, acids and salt solutions, has captured the attention of researchers because of their important effects in dyeing, cross-linking and mercerizing processes. However, these agents are difficult in terms of process application and the requirement for major effluent treatment prior to discharge. In this paper, we report on the treatment of cotton in aqueous glycine solutions that were moderated, utilizing glycine’s amphoteric nature at different pH values, to enhance the morphological and moisture regain properties of cotton fiber. Treatment in an aqueous glycine solution buffered to pH 11 increased fiber ribbon width by 4.5%, cross-sectional area by 53% and moisture regain by 16%. Changes were dependent on the treatment solution pH value. This paper describes the glycine treatments and their influence on the cotton fiber cross-sectional morphology and regain properties. The results suggest that at suitable pH values aqueous glycine solutions have the ability to enhance cotton fibers in ways very similar to mercerizing.
Photoexcitation et relaxation de cyanopolyynes en phase gazeuse dans le domaine de l'ultraviolet du vide

Ce travail de these, essentiellement de nature experimentale, s’inscrit dans le domaine de la physique moleculaire en phase gazeuse avec des applications en astrophysique. Il porte sur l’etude de la photoexcitation et de la relaxation de molecules de la famille des cyanopolyynes qui sont detectees dans plusieurs objets du milieu interstellaire (nuages moleculaires, cometes) et dans les atmospheres planetaires comme celle de Titan. Ces composes participent a la chimie du carbone dans ces milieux en interagissant avec le rayonnement interstellaire ou avec le flux solaire dans le domaine spectral de l’ultraviolet du vide (VUV). La structure electronique excitee de plusieurs cyanopolyynes neutres a ete etudiee avec la spectroscopie d’absorption par transformee de Fourier. Ces experiences ont permis d’identifier les etats de Rydberg et de mesurer la section efficace absolue de photoabsorption. Parmi les processus de relaxation ouverts suite a la photoexcitation VUV, les voies d’ionisation et d’ionisation dissociative ont ete explorees de facon detaillee a l’aide du rayonnement synchrotron SOLEIL ou du rayonnement laser du Centre Laser de l'Universite Paris-Sud. Des informations variees (potentiels d’ionisation vers les premiers etats electroniques, frequences vibrationnelles, couplages vibroniques, etc) ont ete obtenues sur les cations de cyanopolyynes via l’utilisation de la spectroscopie de photoelectrons de seuil et de la spectroscopie de photoelectrons d’energie cinetique nulle. Enfin, la detection par spectrometrie de masse des fragments cationiques issus de l’ionisation dissociative a permis de mesurer leur energie d’apparition et de determiner leur voie de formation a l’aide de calculs DFT menes par un collaborateur.
The Effect of Outsourcing Strategy on SMEs Performance: An Empirical Study of Internet Services Providers in Egypt

The focus of this research is to investigate the effect of outsourcing strategy on the Egyptian SMEs’ performance in internet services provider sector, SMEs have the same business goals as larger organizations, but may have more limited resources. Among these goals are delivering cost savings, raising customer satisfaction, achieving high performance, extending service offerings and having access to the best people, skills and technologies. The objectives of the study are to find out the types of activities outsourced by the organizations, the reasons for outsourcing and to evaluate the effects of the outsourced activities on the organizations performance, the methodology based on quantitative analysis by using a questionnaire tools to gather required data. The result also indicates that all four hypotheses were supported by model structural equation model analyses using AMOS Ver 24. The main conclusions drawn from this study are Outsourcing Strategy has significant positive effect on SMEs Internet Services Provider (ISP) performance. the study found that the success of strategic outsourcing depended strongly on the two factors - cost driven outsourcing and focus driven outsourcing. Finally, the study found that the need to focus on core competencies was a major reason why the company chose to outsource some of its activities.
Leveraging on enterprises, Leverage Constraint and Macroeconomic Effects in China

The China’ economy has been structurally deleveraging recent years. By constructing a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with state-owned enterprises and private enterprises, this article explores the impacts of different types of firms deleveraging on China’s macroeconomic fluctuation and its welfare effects. We find that, compared with state-owned enterprises, the deleveraging (or leveraging) of the privates has a greater impacts on economic fluctuations. More importantly, if the private enterprises increase the leverage rate, it may aggravate macroeconomic volatility by the leverage effect and reduce the level of consumption risk sharing. We also find that the increasing of leverage by the privates may bring about much great degree of potential welfare improvement, which is mainly due to the elimination of fluctuations on both consumption and employment.
Discrete-time Variance-optimal Deep Hedging in Affine GARCH Models

Variance-optimal hedging in a discrete-time framework is a practical options strategy that aims to reduce the residual risk. It has been widely used in volatility trading desks. In this paper, we solve the variance-optimal hedging problem for affine GARCH models both semi-explicitly and through deep learning. Applying the Laplace transform method, we derive semi-explicit formulas for the variance-optimal hedging strategy and initial endowment. We also apply the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network (RNN) architectures and solve for optimal hedging strategies under mean square error loss function with transaction costs. Numerical examples illustrate the hedging performance for different approaches, option styles, hedging frequencies and transaction costs.
Institutional Dual-Holders and Corporate Disclosures: A Natural Experiment

This study examines the influence of institutional dual-holders, whose portfolios hold both loans and equity securities of the same firms, on those firms’ disclosures. Using mergers between institutional shareholders and lenders to the same firms as exogenous shocks to identify firms with institutional dual-holders, we document that such firms are less likely to provide management forecasts and disclose fewer voluntary 8-K items. In cross-sectional analyses, we find that the reduction in public disclosures is more pronounced when institutional dual-holders have higher ownership and thus greater ability to influence firms’ disclosures and when firms have lower litigation risk. In addition, we find that firms with institutional dual-holders provide more private disclosures to their dual-holders via loan contract covenants. Additional analyses indicate that the influence of institutional dual-holders on corporate disclosures is driven by both their trading and monitoring incentives.