Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Central Bank Communication and Asset Correlation

In this paper, I investigate the effect of Fed and ECB communications on the long-run stock-bond and stock-FX correlations. I find that a negative tone in central banks’ communication results to a lower stock-bond correlation, which supports the flight to quality phenomenon in both US and Euro area. In contrast, results for stock-FX correlation are mixed. Fed’s negative sentiment leads to opposite movements of US stock prices and USD, while ECB’s negative sentiment drives Eurozone stock prices and EUR moving in the same direction. This result documents for safe haven property of USD.
Research and Synthesis of Control Systems by Output of the Object by Speed- Gradient Method of A.M. Lyapunov Vector Functions

This paper describes one method of research and synthesis of control systems for the output of the object by the gradient-speed method of Lyapunov vector functions. The task of the synthesis of the regulator and the observer is considered as a system that can provide the specified (desired) transition characteristics of a closed system. The gradient-speed method of Lyapunov vector functions allows one to solve the problem of control systems directly using the elements of the matrix of the controller object and the observer. <br><br>The approach to determine the range of changes in the object parameters, a regulator, and an observer that provides the specified (desired) transient characteristics of a closed system.
House Price Forecasting Based on Hybrid Multi-regression Model

It is important to manage the production by analyzing the demand in the market. The market faces uncertain demands, short life cycle and lack of historical sales data due to which, forecasting becomes challenging. Various approaches have been proposed over the past few decades concerning this issue. This paper forms a basis for understanding the prediction mechanism by presenting a comprehensive literature review along with various domains in which sales forecasting can be done. For any prediction process we can’t define a certain model that will just outperform every other model but we can try and find suitable model according to the data. We have defined various models and also a hybrid model to predict the selling price of house based on its features, thus feature engineering is also applied to extract a fruitful dataset.
Análisis Del Impacto De Los Cambios Del Control Corporativo Sobre El Valor De Las Empresas En América Latina (Analysis of the Impact of Changes Made in the Corporative Control of Company Value in Latin America)

<b>Spanish Abstract:</b> El presente trabajo aborda las fusiones y las adquisiciones de empresas latinoamericanas por parte de firmas más poderosas económicamente. Se plantea la hipótesis según la cual las fusiones y adquisiciones para las empresas que realizan transacciones relacionadas con ventas de sus acciones, tienen un efecto positivo de los retornos de la empresa vendedora en la fecha del acontecimiento. La metodología utilizada para medir el impacto de una fusión o adquisición, es la de estudio de eventos o de acontecimientos. <b>English Abstract:</b> This paper tackles the mergers and acquisitions of Latin American companies by more powerful firms. It states the hypothesis that mergers and acquisitions for companies carrying out transactions related to selling their shares have a positive effect on the returns of the company seller in the event date. The methodology to measure the impact of mergers or acquisitions is the study of events or happenings.
Human Resource Strategies With Combined BSC Approach and Fuzzy Logic in Small and Mediocre Industries of Khuzestan Province

In this paper, human resources strategies are examined with the combination of BSC and fuzzy logic in the small and mediocre industries of Khuzestan province. The statistical population in the qualitative section includes experts (managers with 10 years’ experience of management) and a small number of managers and deputies of small and medium sized companies in Ahwaz. By Using Cochran's formula, 384 people were selected as a statistical sample and they were selected randomly. The data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire whose content validity was verified and reviewed by five experts and professors. The reliability of the questionnaire was also evaluated by Cronbach's alpha test, which shows that the alpha coefficient is more than 0.7, so the questionnaire has an appropriate reliability. Data analysis was done in the qualitative section by using the theme analysis method. Also, in the quantitative part, the data of the research was analyzed by using SWOT analysis and fuzzy logic method. In this research, weaknesses and strengths were identified and analyzed in Khuzestan Province for small and medium-sized industries. Identified components and indicators were ranked based on their significance and their role in the development of industries in the province and by the fuzzy method they were ranked. Finally, the suggestions are presented based on the results of the data analysis.
Real Effects of Governmental Accounting Standards: Evidence from GASB Statement No. 53 - Accounting and Financial Reporting for Derivative Instruments

GASB Statement No. 53, Accounting and Financial Reporting for Derivative Instruments, (GASB 53) significantly altered U.S. governmental sector accounting of derivative instruments by mandating the recognition of hitherto off-balance sheet derivative instruments in the government-wide statement of net assets and requiring that ineffective hedges be clearly identified. These requirements have an unfavorable financial statement impact for municipalities with net negative fair value derivative positions and municipalities holding ineffective hedges. Using a hand-collected, comprehensive dataset of municipal derivatives, we examine whether the level of U.S. municipal derivative holdings changed following the adoption of GASB 53. Consistent with GASB 53 affecting municipal officials’ derivative decisions, we find a significant post-GASB 53 reduction in derivative holdings for municipalities with net negative fair value derivative positions and ineffective hedges. Our findings suggest that governmental accounting regulations could affect real decisions of municipal officials and therefore could potentially have public policy implications beyond the provision of information to stakeholders.
Leadership Structure and Earnings Management in the Quoted Food and Beverages Companies in Nigeria

Recently, there have been several deliberations on the importance of strong corporate governance; this led to different countries coming up with different guidelines and codes of practice to support governance. This paper investigated the effect of leadership structure on earnings management in selected quoted food and beverages companies in Nigeria. The ex-post facto research design was adopted for the paper. The sample size for this paper was selected from the population based on the number of food and beverages companies that have been consistently trading on the NSE for the period under study (2007-2017). The paper adopted inferential statistics for data analysis. From the findings, the result show that insiders’ ownership (β 2 = –0.375, t(127)= –3.71, p ˂. 01) and ownership concentration (β 3 = –0.012, t(127)= –4.01, p= ˂ . 01) have significant impact on EM, while CEO duality (β 1 = 0.418, t(127)= 6.33, p˂ . 01) reported positive and significant. The findings revealed that leadership structure has a significant effect on earnings management. This paper concludes as insiders’ ownership and ownership concentration increases; it leads a decrease in discretionary accruals, i.e., improvement in earnings management practices by companies which do not provide incremental managerial ownership ability to reduce earnings management . This paper recommended that management of this companies are advised to adhere strictly to the code of corporate governance relating to the measures of insider ownership, ownership concentration, and CEO duality as they enhance earnings management practices.
On the Existence of the Competitive Equilibrium in Grossman and Shapiro (1984)

In their seminal paper, Grossman and Shapiro (1984) assume that it is not profitable for a firm to deviate to the supercompetitive price of Salop (1979). In this paper, it is shown that this assumption is violated if, roughly, each firm reaches less than half of all consumers unless it is a duopoly. This implies that most of the simulations in Grossman and Shapiro (1984) are not actually equilibria. More importantly, this implies that for their equilibrium to exist nearly all consumers must receive at least one ad. For example, with more than four firms in the market, at least 96% of the consumers must receive at least one ad, and the percentage increases with the number of firms.
Convergence Clubs in Consumer Price Indices and Its Components: Evidence from Indonesian Cities

This study is aimed to explore regional price convergence across 82 cities in Indonesia. Extending previous study, we implement convergence club analysis by using disaggregated data on CPI. We apply recent convergence frameworks and clustering technique developed by Phillips and Sul (2007, 2009) on monthly CPI data and its components from January 2014 to December 2019. From aggregated CPI data, we do not find evidence of overall price convergence. Rather, we identify four convergence clubs. With disaggregated data, three new outcomes are revealed; first, none of CPI components show overall price convergence but multiple convergence clubs do exist, second, there is variability in number and composition of clubs among CPI components, and third, price of education and foodstuffs related commodities in most cities converge to higher level.
Product Traceability and Warranty Cost Sharing in Supply Chains

We consider a supply chain where an OEM (manufacturer) sources a component from multiple suppliers. OEM uses the component to make a product that he then sells to end customers. When a component fails in the field, warranty costs are incurred. The focus of the paper is to examine various mechanisms for sharing the warranty expenses among supply chain members. OEM pays a fixed percentage of total warranty expenses with the rest to suppliers depending on traceability. Without traceability, they are equally shared by suppliers, as originating suppliers of faulty products could not be identified. With traceability, they are traced back to originating suppliers of defective components. Each supplier can exert a costly effort to improve the component's quality, and higher quality means lower warranty cost. Another benefit to a supplier who exerts a quality-improving effort is gaining a larger market share. Suppliers play a multi-person game by independently and simultaneously determining their quality-improving efforts. Using game-theoretic analysis, we characterize equilibrium outcomes of the quality competition game. Equilibrium results are then applied to understand operational impacts of traceability under three different scenarios: <br><br>1) the wholesale price and the OEM responsibility are both exogenously fixed, <br><br>2) OEM sets the wholesale price, but the OEM responsibility is fixed, and <br><br>3) OEM sets both the wholesale price and the OEM responsibility. <br><br>We also compare the decentralized supply chain with its centralized counterpart and provide conditions for supply chain coordination.
Organic high-sensitive elements of gas sensors based on conducting polymer films

ABSTRACT The influence of ammonia on the optical absorption spectra of thin films of polyaniline (PANI), poly-3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (PEDOT), mixtures thereof, and the bilayer film structures based on PANI and PEDOT obtained by electrochemical method were studied. The kinetics of changes in the optical absorption of these structures under the action of ammonia was explored in the spectral range of 350 … 900 nm. It was shown that thin film bilayer structure PANI / PEDOT significantly broaden the range of spectral sensitivity to ammonia compared to individual films.
Study on the response surface optimization of online upgrading of bio-oil with MCM-41 and catalyst durability analysis

Direct catalysis of vapors from vacuum pyrolysis of biomass was performed on MCM-41 to investigate the effects of operating parameters including catalyzing temperature, catalyzing bed height and system pressure on the organic yields. Optimization of organic phase yield was further conducted by employing response surface methodology. The statistical analysis showed that operating parameters have significant effects on the organic phase yield. The organic phase yield first increases and then decreases as catalyzing temperature and catalyzing bed height increase, and decreases as system pressure increases. The optimal conditions for the maximum organic phase yield were obtained at catalyzing temperature of 502.7 ℃ , catalyzing bed height of 2.74 cm and system pressure of 6.83 kPa, the organic phase yield amounts to 15.84% which is quite close to the predicted value 16.19%. The H/C, O/C molar ratios (dry basis), density, pH value, kinematic viscosity and high heat value of the organic phase obtained at optimal conditions were 1.287, 0.174, 0.98 g/cm 3 , 5.12, 5.87 mm 2 /s and 33.08 MJ/kg, respectively. Organic product compositions were examined using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and the analysis showed that the content of oxygenated aromatics in organic phase had decreased and hydrocarbons had increased, and the hydrocarbons in organic phase were mainly aliphatic hydrocarbons. Besides, thermo-gravimetric analysis of the MCM-41 zeolite was conducted within air atmosphere and the results showed that when the catalyst continuously works over 100 min, the index of physicochemical properties of bio-oil decreases gradually from 1.15 to 0.45, suggesting that the refined bio-oil significantly deteriorates. Meanwhile, the coke deposition of catalyst increases from 4.97% to 14.81%, which suggests that the catalytic activity significantly decreases till the catalyst completely looses its activity.
Malleable Rationality

In 1998, Christine Jolls, Cass Sunstein, and Richard Thaler published A Behavioral Approach to Law and Economics, one of the most important pieces of scholarship in decades. Their article famously proposes a departure from the neoclassical law and economics approach to legal analysis. Breaking from neoclassical law and economics' rational actor construct, the authors apply empirical insights about human behavior to introduce the concept of a boundedly rational actor limited by cognitive constraints. Over the past two decades, the behavioral law and economics approach, with its focus on the boundedly rational actor, has contributed needed realism to legal<br>analyses. <br><br>Unfortunately, the current approach to behavioral law and economics is incomplete. Indeed, sometimes it even conflicts with empirical lessons about how the brain actually works. In particular, rationality is not independent of policy but instead has a malleable character that can be molded in long-lasting ways over time by specific laws and policies. By overlooking the malleable nature of rationality, behavioral law and economics cannot reach its full potential, and in f act, may harm the very people it is intended to benefit. A policy enacted to preserve consumer autonomy, for instance, may actually undermine autonomous decisionmaking in the long term. <br><br>In this Article, I take the first step in remedying this oversight. Drawing on the insights of neuroscience, I explain why rationality is not independent of policy and what this means for behavioral law and economics. Working from examples in advertising and criminal law, I explain that malleable rationality can and should be accounted for. Doing so will increase the prescriptive and normative power of behavioral law and economics, and prevent policies from being introduced that undermine rather than advance social welfare.
Proactive Communication of CSR in India – A Distant Dream or Reality?

While much has been written about communication of CSR relatively less is known about a pattern of communication of CSR information. Motivated by this gap in the literature we investigate into the pattern of communication of CSR information amongst the private sector companies in India as reflected in the corporate websites taking absolute profit as the parameter and show that the corporate sector in India is yet to fully recognize the value of open communication about CSR practices to meet the needs of an increasingly transparent marketplace and to help build corporate reputation.
Direct Portfolio Selection Using Recurrent Reinforcement Learning

Portfolio selection has attracted increasing attention in machine learning and AI communities recently. Portfolio selection using on-line learning method has been extensively investigated previously. Literature about portfolio selection using recurrent reinforcement learning (RRL) is relatively scarce and existing ones heavily rely on single asset trading system to heuristically obtain the portfolio weights. In this paper, we propose a novel method, the direct portfolio selection using recurrent reinforcement learning (DPS-RRL), to trade the portfolio directly as a whole. Instead of trading single asset one by one to obtain portfolio weight, our method learns to quantify the wealth allocation weight directly via optimizing the Sharpe ratio of financial portfolios. In this way, we are able to allocate wealth to assets within a portfolio immediately and conveniently. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, which is able to outperform some state-of-the-art portfolio selection methods.
The Transfer of Employee-Oriented CSR in Multinational SME’s: An Explorative Study on the Values of Owner-Managers within International Business

By assessing four cases, this paper develops propositions about the transfer of employee oriented corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices within multinational SMEs. Specifically we explore whether an individual owner-manager can add value within a foreign subsidiary by means of normatively-based, employee-oriented CSR. Based on four case-studies we suggest that not only motives but also the skills of the owner/manager as an institutional entrepreneur are critical in dealing with institutional variance.
Large Book-Tax Differences, Earnings Persistence, and Investment Expenditures

We re-examine the question why large positive and large negative book-tax differences (LPBTDs and LNBTDs) are associated with lower earnings persistence (Hanlon, 2005). Specifically, we investigate whether lower earnings persistence of LPBTD firms and LNBTD firms, relative to firms in the middle BTD quintiles, is due to earnings management or is a consequence of high levels of investment expenditures. First, we show that high CAPX (HiCAPX) firms and high R&amp;D (HiR&amp;D) firms are disproportionately represented in the LPBTD and LNBTD quintiles respectively, whereas high discretionary accrual (HiDA) firms are uniformly distributed across the LPBTD, LNBTD and middle BTD quintiles. Next, we find that HiDA firms are associated with lower earnings persistence in all BTD quintiles, but HiCAPX and HiR&amp;D firms are only associated with lower earnings persistence in the LPBTD and LNBTD quintiles respectively. Extending the Hanlon (2005) model, we demonstrate that the differential earnings persistence associated with LPBTDs and LNBTDs comes from the intersection of HiCAPX and LPBTD firms and the intersection of HiR&amp;D and LNBTD firms respectively. These intersections reflect growth through investment in physical capital and innovation through investment in R&amp;D respectively.
A Ruffled Mind Makes a Restless Forecast: The Effect of Rest on Analyst Forecast Accuracy

This paper tests whether increased rest during holidays improves judgment tasks. We find that earnings forecasts issued after holidays are, on average, more accurate than those issued before holidays. Analyst post-holiday forecast revisions further translate to an average of 0.95\% in excess returns in the three-day period following a holiday. This impact is comparable to other determinants of analyst accuracy and is robust to alternative measures and explanations. We use analysts' location as a proxy for their average bedtime and Daylight Saving Time changes as an instrument for the rest channel and show that enhancement in sleep time leads to more accurate forecasts. Overall, we contribute to the literature by linking rest to financial decision-making.
Organized Crime and Corruption in Italy: The Impact on Real GDP Per Capita

The central theme of the paper is based on a report by the former Director of the Bank of Italy Fabio Panetta who traces in the “illegal triangle”, that is organized crime, corruption, and evasion, one of the main reasons for the gap between the North and South. This thesis focuses on the former two phenomena. <br><br>A measure for corruption is identified by taking inspiration from previous works and from the data provided by competent authorities on the subject. With regard to organized crime, a synthetic indicator is constructed, which takes into account not only the main activities of criminal organizations but also the radicalization in the territory. The principal component analysis is used for this purpose. <br><br>These measures show that corruption and organized crime do not follow the classic dichotomy South/North. <br><br>The use of dynamic panel data models on a regional basis which contains the lagged GDP among the regressors and, in addition to the variables of interest, a set of "control" variables that represent the main determinants of growth in the literature on the subject are considered the most suitable. In particular, the problem of endogeneity (simultaneous causality) is tackled by using the SYS GMM estimator.
Extracting Convenience Yield Free Short-Term Interest Rates from Equity Derivatives

In this paper we use risk-free short-term interest rates (OISTIRs) derived from equity derivatives prices to make the following four contributions: (i) We introduce and compare different methods how to extract these rates and show that a method based on box spreads performs best. (ii) We compare the results with other benchmark short-term interest rates and show that OISTIRs are higher than BUND rates (30 bps for 3-month tenors), lower than EURIBOR rates (16 bps for 3-month tenors), and almost equal to EUREX repo rates. (iii) In terms of informational sensitivity we find OISTIRs to Granger-cause EURIBOR rates, at least since the year 2013. (iv) We use OISTIRs to de- rive the BUND convenience yield. We identify bond offerings and expansive monetary policy decision to negatively impact these yields, while the risk-free maturity premium has a positive impact. Finally, we think this paper may also contribute to the discussion on how to further develop EURIBOR rates.
Electric Field Effects in Electrochemical CO2 Reduction

Electrochemical reduction of CO2 has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing energy storage and producing chemical feedstocks. A mechanistic understanding of the process is crucial to the discovery of efficient catalysts, and an atomistic description of the electrochemical interface is a major challenge due to its complexity. Here, we examine the CO2 → CO electrocatalytic pathway on Ag(111) using density functional theory (DFT) calculations and an explicit model of the electrochemical interface. We show that the electric field from solvated cations in the double layer and their corresponding image charges on the metal surface significantly stabilizes key intermediates—*CO2 and *COOH. At the field-stabilized sites, the formation of *CO is rate-determining. We present a microkinetic model that incorporates field effects and electrochemical barriers from ab initio calculations. The computed polarization curves show reasonable agreement with experiment without fitting any parameters.