Thesis advisor: Thomas Chemmanur / My dissertation is comprised of three chapters. The first chapter studies the impact of government spending on corporate innovation output. By exploiting the changes in Senate committee chairmanships as a source of exogenous variation in state-level federal government expenditures, I find that firms headquartered in states with increases in government spending significantly reduce their innovation output, as measured both by patent count and patent citations. These reductions are mostly concentrated in industries that need more labor input for innovative activities and firms headquartered in states with lower unemployment rates. I also analyze three possible channels through which an increase in government spending may affect innovation output: resource reallocation by corporations and individuals from innovative to non-innovative activities; partial movement of innovative activities from the corporate to the government sector; and a reduction in inventor productivity due to a labor-leisure trade-off. My evidence provides the strongest support for the resource reallocation channel. In the second chapter, co-authored with Thomas Chemmanur and Karthik Krishnan, we analyze the relationship between the human capital or “management quality” of firms and their long-run performance, using panel data from the BoardEx database on firms' top management characteristics and a management quality index constructed using common factor analysis on individual proxies for various aspects of management quality. We control for the potential endogenous matching between firm and management quality using a plausibly exogenous shock to the supply of new managers as an instrument. Using this instrument, we find a causal relationship between firms' management quality and future operating performance, market valuations, and stock returns. In the third chapter, co-authored with Thomas Chemmanur, Karthik Krishnan, and Qianqian Yu, using panel data on top management characteristics and a management quality factor constructed using common factor analysis on individual management quality proxies, we analyze the relation between the human capital or “quality” of firm management and its innovation inputs and outputs. We control for the endogenous matching between firm and management quality using a plausibly exogenous shock to the supply of new managers as an instrument, thereby finding a causal relationship between management quality and innovation activities. We show that higher management quality firms achieve greater innovation output by hiring more and higher quality inventors. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

Several writers in the field of capital budgeting have charged that present day literature on the subject fails to adequately address the post audit phase of capital expenditure programs. This study is essentially a survey of current literature designed to determine the validity of this charge. To accomplish this task, the study compares each author’s published views on selected post audit factors with other responses from the literature and analyzes collective agreements and differences. Armed with this information, an attempt is made to provide answers to three pertinent questions: l. Does general agreement exist among writers on what constitutes the basic elements of post auditing? 2. Within each of these basic elements, has the literature established a generally accepted set of operating principles to guide the practitioner? 3. In general, has the literature to date, individually or collectively, presented an approach to post auditing which is sufficiently structured to enable the practitioner to develop an effective post auditing program and to proceed with implementation?

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In this thesis, I study the variance risk premium in Gold VIX market. Using synthetically created variance swaps, I quantify the variance risk premium to be average -0.068 in absolute terms and -0.358 in log return terms, meaning that purchasing volatility in Gold VIX is generally unprofitable. Although the average negative risk premium is not statistically significant, the mean log return of risk premium is robust with Newey-West test. Furthermore, I attempt to test whether risk premium vary with time or the level of the swap rate, but obtain unclear results.

As corporate sponsorship of sporting events becomes a more popular marketing tool, the price tag associated with these sponsorship agreements has steepened considerably. Over the past thirty years, sponsorship has become an integral part of the Olympic Games. In this paper, we employ an event study methodology to assess the impact of both the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games and the performance of Canadian Olympic athletes on the shareholder value of national Olympic sponsors. We hypothesize, in line with current behavioral finance research, that the national Olympic sponsors will capitalize on the positive mood and attention associated with the Games in such a way that Olympic sponsorship will positively impact shareholder value. However, we find that, from a stock return perspective, corporate sponsorship of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games is not a value-adding investment. We find that while the market index is positively impacted by both the Olympic Games and Canadian medalists, there is a negative and significant impact of the Olympic Games on national sponsors. Furthermore, Canadian medalists have a positive impact on the stock returns of three individual sponsors, but these winners' effects are negative for two sponsors and insignificant for another two sponsors.

This paper uses timer series panel data from Bloomberg to ascertain the affects that carbon prices and other factors have on European oil and steel companies. This paper finds inconclusive evidence of carbon price return correlation with oil and steel company equity return. However it does find a strong positive correlation between the market portfolio excess return, which is the return on the DJS 600 EUR index minus the German three-month T-bill rate, and oil and steel excess equity return.

Technological innovation is a key process for the modern enterprise to gain competitiveness. Technological innovation let United States companies become the leader of the world, and the well developed capital market is the source to promote technological innovation. Science and Technology is the goal of Japan. Japan learns from technology and innovation to become a technological power. But the financial structure is different from United States and Japan. The difference for supporting technological innovation is the subject of this research. The study found that stock market is the most important funding outside the banking system. The mature stock markets in the United States gave birth to the successful technological innovation of the modern enterprise. Whether it the patent application and the export of new products and technologies are the highest in the world. The stock market of Japan is not develop enough, it can¡¦t give enough support to technological innovation. But the tight relation between the companies and banks make up for the immaturity of the stock market. And the relation promotes the enterprises to obtain the outstanding achievements in technological innovation. Overall, the mature stock markets of United States support the development of technological innovation, and achieve a higher degree of technological innovation.

Univ., Diss.--Hannover, 2007.

This dissertation examines banks' resolution of distressed commercial mortgage loans. Following the introduction in the first chapter, the second chapter reviews the literature on banks' resolutions of distressed loans. In chapter 3, I present a model of banks' resolution decisions under information asymmetry. The model shows that banks prefer to renegotiate instead of foreclosing problem loans when there is a cost associated with revealing the quality of their mortgage portfolios. The fourth chapter presents empirical findings that are consistent with the model, i.e., that banks' resolution decisions are affected by their concerns of revealing negative information through large foreclosures. I find that larger loans are more likely to be renegotiated than smaller loans and that banks take a shorter amounts of time to renegotiate rather than to foreclose on problem loans. Secondly, the impact of loan size on the propensity to renegotiate is magnified for banks with superior past performance and for banks with lower local mortgage distress. In addition, I find that banks that raised new equity capital exhibit a stronger tendency to renegotiate larger problem loans in the previous year. In chapter 5, as a falsification test, I compare the bank-held sample with a Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities (CMBS) sample that does not share banks' mimicking motives, because special servicers of problem loans are not the originators of those loans. I find that the results are weaker or not present for CMBS, in contrast to the bank loan sample. In chapter 6, I study banks' resolution of problem loans while considering their problem loan portfolios. I consider two aspects of banks' problem loan portfolios -- their relationships with borrowers and the degree of regional diversification. Empirical results suggest that the sample banks choose to act "tougher", i.e., foreclose more, as they have more loans with a borrower. Finally, the degree of geographical diversification in problem loan portfolios may affect banks' resolution decisions. I find that as banks have geographically concentrated problem loan portfolios, they are more likely to renegotiate larger loans, measured either absolutely or relatively. Chapter 7 concludes. / text