Tesis (licenciatura en leyes)--Universidad de Costa Rica. / Bibliography: p. [151].

Tesis (licenciatura en leyes)--Universidad de Costa Rica. / Bibliography: p. [151].

Compensation systems are designed by boards of directors to encourage manager performance. Severance packages are intended to provide insurance for the CEO's human value. Frequently, however, severance packages are increased upon termination by boards of directors at will. These non-contractual severance payments are called discretionary severance pay. This study investigates discretionary severance pay at financial institutions surrounding the financial crisis. Financial institutions are of particular interest as they faced unique regulations limiting the amount of severance payable to departing CEOs. There is evidence that the boards of directors engaged in regulatory arbitrage by increasing payments for the consulting and non-compete component of severance pay and decreasing payments for other components of discretionary severance pay.

This study investigates the association between CEO severance agreements and corporate tax avoidance. Severance agreements, by providing executives with additional compensation when there is a change in employment status, should serve to encourage additional risk-taking, as reflected by increased tax avoidance activities. Using a large sample of aggregate compensation data, I find some evidence of a relation between the presence of a CEO severance agreement and tax avoidance. Using a smaller sample of hand-collected data, I find a significant negative relation between the magnitude of cash severance pay and tax avoidance and a significant positive relation between the magnitude of equity severance pay and tax avoidance. Overall, this study provides evidence that the structure and magnitude of severance agreements are related to tax avoidance. / Ph. D.

Poetic truths exist within unknowable interspaces beyond human perception. Through the reciprocal engagement of phenomenological inquiry and thorough material explorations, I aim to access these spaces as sites of greater understanding. Magnifying the fissures between the material and sensual qualities in material constructs, my practice activates specific instruments within mutable, relational systems of installation, movement, and documentation. The tools I make function within variable orientations and are implemented as both physical barriers and thresholds into alternate, virtual domains. Intersecting fragments of sound and moving image build a nexus of superimposed spatialities, while material constructions are enveloped in ephemeral intensities. Within this compounded environment, the embodied perspective of the viewer is charged as an active site through which durational, contemplative experiences can pass. Reverberation, the ghostly refrain of a sound calling back to our ears from a distant plane, can intensify our emotional experience of place. My thesis project Planar Refrains utilizes four electro-mechanical reverb plates, analog audio filters designed to simulate expansive acoustic arenas. Historically these devices have provided emotive voicings to popular studio recordings, dislocating the performer from the commercial studio and into a simulated reverberant territory of mythic proportions. The material resonance of steel is used to filter a recorded signal, shaping the sound of a human performance into something more transformative, a sound embodying otherworldly dynamics. In subverting the designed utility of reverb plates, I am exploring their value as active surfaces extending across different spatial realities. The background of ephemeral sonic residue is collapsed into the foreground, a filter becomes sculpture, a sculpture becomes an instrument in an evolving soundscape.

My practice explores phenomenal poetic truths that exist in fissures between the sensual and physical qualities of material constructs. Magnifying this confounding interspace, my work activates specific instruments within mutable, relational systems of installation, movement, and documentation. The tools I fabricate function within variable orientations and are implemented as both physical barriers and thresholds into alternate, virtual domains. Intersecting fragments of sound and moving image build a nexus of superimposed spatialities, while material constructions are enveloped in ephemeral intensities. Within this compounded environment, both mind and body are charged as active sites through which durational, contemplative experiences can pass. Reverberation, the ghostly refrain of a sound calling back to our ears from a distant plane, can intensify our emotional experience of place. My project Planar Refrains utilizes four electro-mechanical reverb plates, analog audio filters designed to simulate expansive acoustic arenas. Historically these devices have provided emotive voicings to popular studio recordings, dislocating the performer from the commercial studio and into a simulated reverberant territory of mythic proportions. The material resonance of steel is used to filter a recorded signal, shaping the sound of a human performance into something more transformative, a sound embodying otherworldly dynamics. In subverting the designed utility of reverb plates, I am exploring their value as active surfaces extending across different spatial realities. The background of ephemeral sonic residue is collapsed into the foreground, a filter becomes sculpture, and this sculpture becomes an instrument in an evolving soundscape.

This research examines the exit of a subsidiary from its corporate parent through spin-off, the actions taken by the firm management post spin-off, and the performance implications of those actions, all from the spin-off's perspective. While spin-off announcements are generally met with a positive stock market reaction, what occurs post spin-off remains largely unexamined, with performance predictions regarding spin-off firms often being equivocal. This raises questions as to what generates positive performance for spin-off firms, with agency, transaction cost, and upper echelons theories offering differing, and sometimes conflicting, predictions. By integrating these theoretical perspectives, a model of managerial action and its performance implications is presented. The model examines how the formation of new top management, the establishment of managerial monitoring and incentives, and the severance effects from leaving the corporate structure affect strategic, financial, and institutional actions, and how these actions affect performance. The theory and hypotheses developed in this research are empirically tested on a sample of 176 corporate spin-offs completed by publicly traded firms between 1986 and 1997. Results for the action-based models indicate that background of the CEO or the TMT, as well as CEO options, had no effect on actions. CEO and TMT ownership had opposite effects on financial actions, with TMT ownership increasing the likelihood of strategic actions and CEO ownership increasing the likelihood of institutional actions. Ownership by the parent firm and monitoring by officers of the parent serving as board members had no effect on the likelihood of actions, although having a chairman of the board from the parent decreased the likelihood of strategic actions. Finally, severance effects had limited influence on the actions taken post spin-off. Results for the performance-based models indicate that strategic actions were negatively related to ROA, while financial and institutional actions are positively related to ROA and institutional actions are positively related to market performance. In general, inaction was related to lower Tobin's q, with the signs of the coefficients for the other performance models negative, but not significant. Finally, the spin-off firm's relationship with its corporate parent had limited effect on the link between actions and performance.

The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) is a provincial land use planning and development appeal board. The powers of the board are vast in comparison to other land appeal boards in Canada. One of the most frequent appeals that the OMB adjudicates emerges from disputes between municipalities and landowners (or other members of the public) regarding the severance of land. In this thesis I empirically examine factors that influence OMB decisions. More specifically, I model the decision of an OMB adjudicator to affirm, or overturn, the decision of the municipality with regards to severance appeals. The explanatory variables include characterizations of the adjudicator – e.g., professional background, gender, experience, etc. – as well as characterizations of the OMB hearing – e.g., the number of participants (public and professional), etc. The empirical analysis allows for a better understanding of theoretical issues in the law-economic literature concerning judicial utility functions and the extent to which judges take into consideration their public and peer reputation (Posner, 1993).

Orientador: Roberto Braga / Banca: Pompeu Figueiredo de Carvalho / Banca: Enéas Rente Ferreira / Banca: Ana Maria Marques Camargo Marangoni / Banca: José Francisco / Resumo: Mobilidade refere-se ao deslocamento populacional no espaço urbano. Acessibilidade é a maneira de acessar os equipamentos urbanos em meio à forma e o desenho da cidade. A dificuldade de movimentar-se e acessar os desejos de viagem pode ser causada por barreiras físicas ocasionadas historicamente por obras de engenharia (pontes, viadutos, ferrovias e rodovias) e naturalmente por formações do relevo e rios. O objeto desta pesquisa concentra-se em entender as percepções dos moradores de dois bairros periféricos da cidade de Rio Claro perante o efeito barreira causado pela Rodovia Washington Luiz, a ferrovia e o Rio Corumbataí. / Abstract: Mobility refers to the populational movement within a certain urban space. Accessibility is the way to access the urban equipment as to the shape and design of the city. The difficulty of moving and accessing the desires of a journey can be caused by physical barriers such as bridges, viaducts, railway, highways) and also natural barriers as rivers and formation of soil. The aim of this research concentrates in understanding the perception of dwellers of two neighborhoods of the city Rio Claro due to the barrier effect caused by the Washington Luiz highway; the railway and the River Corumbataí. / Doutor

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:33:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-11-03Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T20:48:09Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 sousa_mtr_dr_rcla.pdf: 1095767 bytes, checksum: cf5d06e80aae462d02ecd300b3453199 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Mobilidade refere-se ao deslocamento populacional no espaço urbano. Acessibilidade é a maneira de acessar os equipamentos urbanos em meio à forma e o desenho da cidade. A dificuldade de movimentar-se e acessar os desejos de viagem pode ser causada por barreiras físicas ocasionadas historicamente por obras de engenharia (pontes, viadutos, ferrovias e rodovias) e naturalmente por formações do relevo e rios. O objeto desta pesquisa concentra-se em entender as percepções dos moradores de dois bairros periféricos da cidade de Rio Claro perante o efeito barreira causado pela Rodovia Washington Luiz, a ferrovia e o Rio Corumbataí. / Mobility refers to the populational movement within a certain urban space. Accessibility is the way to access the urban equipment as to the shape and design of the city. The difficulty of moving and accessing the desires of a journey can be caused by physical barriers such as bridges, viaducts, railway, highways) and also natural barriers as rivers and formation of soil. The aim of this research concentrates in understanding the perception of dwellers of two neighborhoods of the city Rio Claro due to the barrier effect caused by the Washington Luiz highway; the railway and the River Corumbataí.