Since the Great Depression and through the mid-seventies, banks have been considered to be relatively stable. However, more recently the rate of failed banks has increased from.04% per year to 0.5% per year. These changes and problems in the banking industry have focused renewed attention on banks and bank failures as an area of research. / This dissertation examines bank failures and bank runs from a theoretical perspective and an empirical perspective. It is organized in the form of two essays. The first essay examines banks from a theoretical perspective using a simulation model. It identifies and explores many of the underlying reasons for failures. The second essay examines banks from an empirical perspective using multiple discriminant analysis and logit analysis. The goal in this essay is to correctly classify and predict group membership in either the failed bank group or the nonfailed bank group. It is hoped that a better understanding of bank failures and runs can be developed from these two essays. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-09, Section: A, page: 3132. / Major Professor: William A. Christiansen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb. 8, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-05, Section: A, page: 1703. Adviser: Robert Jennings.

This thesis consists of two essays on empirical corporate finance. The first essay documents that the short-run and the long-run stock performance after seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) is positively related to the pre-issue demand from short-term and long-term institutional investors, respectively. This suggests that institutional investors acquire information that is most relevant to their investment horizons. Moreover, institutional investors' information advantage is more pronounced in cold issue markets than in hot issue markets, confirming firms' tendency to issue equity in periods of reduced information asymmetry. In addition, this essay documents that firms issue seasoned equity at a greater discount when the pre-issue demand from short-term institutional investors is low. The second essay examines the effects of CEO career concern incentives on firm policy. We document that a CEO's probability of being fired is positively related to equity risk, idiosyncratic risk and R&D investments. This supports the idea that CEOs with a very high likelihood of being fired tend to take more risks so that good outcomes can prevent their firing (e.g. Zwiebel (1995)). We also document that when a CEO has a high likelihood of being fired, her firm tends to have a higher leverage ratio and lower firm diversification. This is consistent with the idea that CEOs' risk-taking incentives generated when they are facing the pressure of termination could mitigate their risk aversion and induce them to implement riskier corporate policy. / Cette thèse comprend deux essais en finance d'entreprise empirique. Le premier essai met en évidence une relation entre les performances de court terme et de long terme d'une action après une augmentation de capital, et les demandes respectives d'investisseurs institutionnels de court terme et de long terme avant l'opération. Ce résultat suggère que les investisseurs institutionnels acquièrent l'information la plus pertinente pour leurs horizons d'investissement. De plus, l'avantage informationnel des investisseurs institutionnels est plus marqué lorsque les marchés primaires sont favorables que lorsqu'ils sont défavorables, ce qui confirme la tendance des entreprises à émettre du capital lorsque les asymétries informationnelles sont réduites. Cet essai montre aussi que la décote que subissent les entreprises sur les actions nouvellement émises est plus importante lorsque la demande des investisseurs institutionnels de court terme avant l'opération est faible. Le deuxième essai s'intéresse aux effets des ambitions de carrière des chefs d'entreprise sur les politiques menées par l'entreprise. Nous montrons une relation positive entre la probabilité de renvoi du chef d'entreprise et le risque des actions, le risque idiosyncratique et les investissements en R&D. Ce résultat conforte l'idée selon laquelle les chefs d'entreprise ayant une forte probabilité d'être révoqués prennent des risques, en espérant qu'un résultat favorable empêche leur renvoi (voir par exemple Zwiebel, 1995). Nous montrons également qu'une plus forte probabilité d'être révoqué est associée à un levier financier plus élevé et une diversification plus faible. Ce résultat peut s'expliquer par la pression induite par la perspective d'un renvoi, qui attenue l'aversion au risque des chefs d'entreprise et leur donne des incitations mener des politiques d'entreprise plus risquées.

The purpose of this study is to provide a precise and exhaustive study as well as an analysis of the place occupied by the banking security under Quebec Law in relation to the coming into force of the Civil Code of Quebec on January 1st 1994. / The author shall emphasize her research on specific elements that have changed with the existence of new rules of civil law and that will contribute to the creation of new conflicts between financing banks of specific classes of debtors under the Bank Act mechanism and the other creditors of the latter. / A first step will be to review constitutional principles underlying conflicts between provincial private law and federal exclusive jurisdiction matters, an analysis being considered necessary in order to study specific conflicts that might exist along the overlap situations between the Civil Code of Quebec and the Bank Act. / This text core shall emphasize on the nature of the right conferred to the bank by the banking security under the light of the new Quebec law of real security, the effect of article 1801 C.c.Q. in relation to the banking conventions, and the multiple interactions between the banking security and certain types of hypotheses.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

The use of derivatives in corporate risk management has grown rapidly in recent years, motivated in part by the success of the financial industry in creating a variety of over-the-counter and exchange-traded products. To evaluate the effectiveness of a risk management program or to test financial theories of risk management, a firm's underlying risk exposure must be known. While survey evidence and some empirical evidence exist on how and why a firm engages in various risk management activities through derivatives markets (e.g., Bodnar and Gebhardt 1996, and Tufano 1996, 1998), there is little empirical research examining the effect of derivative usage on a firm's risk and return characteristics. This dissertation examines a sample of gold producing firms whose derivative strategies are known and investigates how their equity and accounting based performances are related with the degree of derivative usage and the price uncertainty of their underlying products. In addition, using insights from both the various Value-at-Risk and multifactor literature, the ‘marginal’ Value-at-Risk framework is applied to measure the market risk exposures of the commodity based corporations. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter, Effects of Derivatives Usage on Commodity Based Corporations, provides descriptive evidence on the risk management activities of a sample of gold mining firms and empirically investigates whether a firm's use of derivatives materially reduces the overall expected equity-return risk as well as the earnings risk measured by analysts' forecasts. The second chapter, Risk Measurements for Derivatives Users and Non-Users, examines two firms who have well articulated derivative use strategies that are diametrically opposite. This chapter focused on measuring a firm's risk exposure and how a hedging policy alters the exposure. The last chapter, An Investigation of Gold Prices in Spot and Futures Market, provides empirical evidence of the gold price movement during the last decade and explores the nature of the both cross sectional and time series relationship between prices in the gold futures market and spot market. The results show, in general, both the spot and futures gold prices react at the same time (within the same-day) and in the same way to new information coming to the market. The potential contributions of this dissertation to the corporate risk management literature include that; this study (1) empirically investigates the consequences of the derivatives usage on a firm's expected equity return volatility as well as forecasted earnings volatility, and (2) examines how financial markets price the risk of a firm's underlying assets.

This thesis investigates credit in the Marxist tradition. Our premise is that credit has been inadequately theorized because of the Marxist dichotomy, a separation of real and monetary factors. It is a consequence of the well-known Classical dichotomy and an essentialist interpretation of Marx's dialectic, contributing to economic determinism and marginalizing the role of finance in Marxist analysis. Based on our reading of Capital, we oppose this interpretation of credit as inconsistent with Marx's methodological and conceptual break with Classical economics, arguing an overdetermined dialectic integrates credit into the class analysis of capitalism. We show that literature in this area either ignores or overemphasizes credit, consistent with the dichotomy. Two schools of thought, finance capital and monopoly capital, reach fundamentally incompatible conclusions about the development of advanced capitalism. Finance capital is predicated on the domination of corporations by banks due to the primacy of credit. Monopoly capital stresses the ascendancy of monopoly corporations, implying a secondary status for finance. We reject the terms of this debate for retaining a deterministic methodology and jettisoning class analysis for an institutional framework. The thesis then offers an alternative theory based on an overdetermined dialectic. The model integrates bank loans and other forms of credit into the Volume 1 world of Capital as a link to the Volume 3 world. This framework is used to investigate some class and nonclass effects of credit, without essentializing either capital accumulation or bank credit like monopoly and finance capital schools. Finally, this alternative framework is applied to a case study of Texas Air Corporation, analyzing how finance helped transform a small regional airline into the largest carrier in the non-communist world. Through each phase of Texas Air's growth, we elaborate on the relationship between financial, industrial and nonindustrial capitals. This provides a new perspective on the relationship between productive and unproductive capital; competition and the centralization of capital; and the resulting class alliances and struggles. We conclude that this framework elucidates the mutual determination of productive and financial relations in contemporary capitalism, whereas the prevailing approaches cannot.

No description available.

No description available.