Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 109-112).

Thesis (M.S.)--Duquesne University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p.28-29) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-68). Also available on the Internet.

Στην παρούσα μελέτη εξετάζουμε το βαθμό συγχρονισμού των οικονομικών κύκλων των 27 χωρών μελών της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης για δύο χρονικές περιόδους, άπό 1995:1-2000:4 έως 2001:1-2006:4, όπου τη δεύτερη περίοδο έγινε η υιοθέτηση του κοινού νομίσματος στην Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση. Επιπροσθέτως μελετάμε τους παράγοντες που επιδρούν στη συσχέτιση των οικονομικών κύκλων. Από τα αποτελέσματα που λαμβάνουμε, δεν είναι ξεκάθαρη η εικόνα του συγχρονισμού των οικονομικών κύκλων για τις δύο αυτές περιόδους. Όσον αφορά στους παράγοντες, διαπιστώνεται μια θετική και στατιστικά σημαντική σχέση μεταξύ των ροών εμπορίου και των συσχετίσεων. / The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree of business cycle synchronization of EU 27 countries, among two periods, 1995:q1-2000:q4 and 2001:q1-2006:q4, when the current union was adopted. Secondly, we study the factors that affect the correlation of business cycles. THe results we are taking show that there is not a clear view about how the current union affects the synchronization of business cycles. Concerning the factors, we found a positive and important relation between trade flows and business cycles correlation.

Esse trabalho faz um estudo sobre a hipótese de descolamento das relações de curto e longo prazo entre os PIBs das economias brasileira e norte-americana. Para isso, é realizado, inicialmente, uma análise da literatura existente sobre a possível mudança nas relações entre as economias emergentes e avançadas. Em seguida, foram apresentadas explicações teóricas para as ligações entre os PIBs de Brasil e dos Estados Unidos da América. As metodologias usadas na investigação foram a análise de cointegração e a decomposição dos produtos internos brutos dos países em questão. Os principais resultados, obtidos usando dados anuais entre 1980 e 2008, apontam para uma mudança importante nas relações de longo prazo entre as economias a partir da década de 1980 e uma intensificação das relações de curto prazo a partir da década de 1990. No entanto, ao longo dos anos e, principalmente a partir da metade da década de 2000, foram encontradas evidências em favor de um maior descolamento de curto prazo dos PIBs de Brasil e EUA. / The following dissertation tests the hypothesis of decoupling between the Brazilian and North American economies. For this purpose, the related literature is initially investigated. Afterwards, theoretical explanations on the links between the GDPs of Brazil and USA are shown. The methodologies employed were cointegration analysis and trend/cycle decomposition of the GDPs of the mentioned countries. The main findings using annual data between 1980 and 2008 point out to an important change in the long term relationship between the economies starting in the 1980s and an increase in the short-run links during the 1990s. However, there is evidence suggesting a decoupling of the short term fluctuations between Brazils and USAs GDPs starting in the second half of the 2000s.

Na trajetória da economia mundial, destaca-se a importância do agronegócio, que exerce um papel essencial no desenvolvimento econômico e social dos países, devido principalmente à sua capacidade de geração de renda e empregos. Entretanto, o agronegócio possui um obstáculo para a sua sustentabilidade, que é sua natureza cíclica, sofrendo influências de vários fatores de mercado e apresentando elevada volatilidade nos preços das commodities. Nesse sentido, vê-se a necessidade de explorar o aspecto cíclico dos preços das commodities, com o intuito de captar a dinâmica dos fatores de mercado que influenciam a formação do preço, para o seu monitoramento antecipado. Dentro desse contexto, o objetivo do presente estudo foi propor o desenvolvimento de uma ferramenta para prever o comportamento dos ciclos de crescimento e retração de uma commodity, especificamente o açúcar, com base no modelo de indicador antecedente. Para isso, foi construído, primeiramente, o ciclo de preços agrícolas, com base nos ciclos de negócios e na exposição das estruturas que representam os principais fatores de alteração nos preços das commodities: econômica, fundamentalista, climática e relacionada. O próximo passo foi datar os pontos de mudança do preço do açúcar, utilizando um modelo de cadeia de Markov e confrontando seus resultados com os acontecimentos históricos do setor. Posteriormente, um modelo de fator dinâmico foi utilizado para extrair movimentos cíclicos comuns a um conjunto de variáveis que apresentam poder de previsão, fora de amostra, com relação ao preço do açúcar. Como resultado, foram encontrados três indicadores antecedentes, que sinalizaram consistentemente a maioria dos picos e vales do ciclo do preço do açúcar, num horizonte de dois anos de antecedência. Cada indicador selecionado é composto por uma combinação linear entre os coeficientes e quatro variáveis independentes, as quais representam, respectivamente, as estruturas setoriais analisadas: fundamentalista, econômica, climática e relacionada. Em seguida, os indicadores foram combinados com o preço em um vetor bivariado auto-regressivo para obter previsões lineares do preço da commodity açúcar. As previsões obtidas revelam que os indicadores apresentaram um desempenho de previsão bem superior ao do modelo base, em todos os horizontes, e muito próximo aos valores reais dos preços. Portanto, da análise de previsão de pontos de mudança e de previsão linear, conclui-se que os indicadores antecedentes da commodity açúcar (IAC) constituem-se em um instrumento informativo para sinalizar o comportamento futuro do preço do açúcar, mesmo quando apenas dados preliminares e não revisados estão disponíveis. A ferramenta proposta, além de servir como um instrumento para compreender a natureza das flutuações dos preços das commodities, pretende tornar-se fonte de subsídios para o projeto de diretrizes, ações e formulação de estratégias de desenvolvimento, tanto no âmbito das políticas públicas, quanto daquelas iniciativas que deveriam ser adotadas pelo setor privado, servindo como um instrumento essencial para o planejamento das instituições integrantes do agronegócio. / In the course of the world economy, underscoring the importance of agribusiness, which plays a key role in economic and social development of countries, mainly due to its ability to generate income and jobs. However, agribusiness has an obstacle to its sustainability, which is its cyclical nature, is influenced by various market factors and a very high volatility in commodity prices. In this sense, we see the need to explore the cyclical aspect of commodity prices, in order to capture the dynamics of market factors that influence the pricing for its monitoring anticipated. Within this context, the objective of this study was to propose the development of a tool to predict the behavior of cycles of growth and shrinkage of a commodity, specifically sugar, based on the type of leading indicator. For that was built first, the cycle of agricultural prices, based on business cycles and exposure of the structures that represent the main factors of change in commodity prices: economic fundamentalism, climate and related. The next step was dating the turning points of the price of sugar, using a model of Markov chain, comparing their results with historical events in the industry. Subsequently, a dynamic factor model was used to extract common cyclical movements in a set of variables that have predictive power, out of the sample to the price of sugar. As a result, there were three leading indicators, which signaled consistently most of the peaks and valleys of the cycle of the price of sugar, a horizon of two years in advance. Each indicator selected is composed of a linear combination of the coefficients and four independent variables, which represent, respectively, industry structures analyzed: fundamentalist, economic, climate and related. Then, the indicators were combined with the price in a bivariate vector autoregressive forecasts for linear price of crude sugar. The predictions show that the indicators showed a predictive performance far superior to the base model at all horizons, and very close to the actual values of prices. Therefore, the analysis of forecasting turning points and linear prediction, it is concluded that the leading indicators of crude sugar (IAC) is based on an informative tool for signaling future behavior of the price of sugar, even when only preliminary data not reviewed are available. The proposed tool, besides serving as a tool to understand the nature of fluctuations in commodity prices, hopes to become a source of input for the draft guidelines, actions and formulation of development strategies, both in the public policies and those initiatives that should be adopted by the private sector, serving as an essential tool for planning of institutions of agribusiness.

The ultimate aim of this study is to identify and eliminate inefficiencies associated with the current claims management processes, thereby ensuring cost reduction, high damages recoveries while ensuring that the company is positioned to be able to apply its resources in the best way possible to respond to satisfying the needs of the customer.

This paper considers the problematic of business cycles. The author aggregates historical findings and development of opinions of business cycles. Author also evaluates methods of business cycle measurements with the use of economic indicators, including their analysis and understanding of their logic. Goal of the paper is to find a way to analyze economic cycles for use in asset allocation for portfolio management purposes.

The essential characteristic of the future is uncertainty. A basic feature of the economy, and life in general, is that decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty-the future is unknowable. Having reliable guidelines or indicators that provide discipline and signposts to the future is required for the process of successful investing. Conditions are constantly changing, and there are no rewards for replaying the same old game over and over. To answer for this demand, continued from the previous studies (Choi, 1996; Choi et al., 1997a; Choi et al., 1997b; Choi et al., 1999), this study developed the restaurant industry business cycle models and examined financial practices of the high and low performing firms over the industry cycles. The U.S. restaurant industry demonstrated three cycles (peak to peak or trough to trough) for the period of 1970 through 1998. The restaurant industry peaked in 1973, 1979, and 1989. The industry troughed in 1970, 1974, 1980, and 1991. The mean duration of the restaurant industry cycles is 8 years (SD: 2) calculated by peak to peak and 6.5 years (SD: 2.08) calculated by trough to trough. Expansion takes an average of 6 years in the restaurant industry but declines sharply after it reaches the peak taking average 1.33 years. The restaurant industry experienced high growth (boom) every five years on average. The troughs of the growth cycles, contrasted to the peaks of the growth cycles, coincided with those of the restaurant industry business cycles in each case except one (1985). During that year a low growth phase interrupted industry business expansion but did not terminate it. Restaurant industry growth cycles, then, tend to be relatively symmetrical: since 1970 the average duration was about 2.25 years for both expansion (L-H) and contraction (H-L). In contrast, the restaurant industry business cycles in the same period show a strong asymmetry: the expansions lasted on the average 6 years; the contractions, 1.33 years. The expansions have varied in duration much more than the high growth phases have (the respective standard deviations are 2.58 and 0.95 years). This study supports the view that the cyclical fluctuations of the growth of the restaurant industry can be projected by measuring and analyzing series of economic indicators and each economic indicator has specific characteristics in terms of time lags, and thus can be classified into leading, coincident, and lagging indicators. This study formed a set of composite indices with twelve indicators classified in the leading category, six as coincident, and twenty as lagging. The high performing firms' financial practices regarding investment decisions measured by capital spending, and price earning ratio, and part of financing and dividend decisions measured by market value of common share outstanding are independent of the cyclical fluctuations of the industry cycles. But, their practices regarding dividend decisions measured by the earning per share, investment decision measured by cash flow per share, and financing decisions measured by asset value per share and long term debt level are dependent on the events (Expansion/Contractions) in the Restaurant Industry Cycles. Conclusively, high performers exercise their capital investment (reflected by capital spending) and equity management (reflected by common share outstanding and P/E ratio) independently while being less influenced by the industry swings. They exercise, however, their working capital management (reflected by cash flow per share), earning management (reflected by EPS), asset management, and long term debt management quite dependently while being more influenced by the industry swings. The financial practices exercised by the low performing firms are independent from the events in the industry cycle. Although some financial practices are related to the events in the industry cycle, the directions are opposite to the events in the industry cycle. Specifically, for all of the selected financial strategies except common share outstanding and long-term debt, the low performers practice them independently from the cyclical fluctuations of the industry cycles. Even for common share outstanding and long-term debt strategies, they practiced their strategies in opposite directions to the events (Expansion/Contractions) in the Restaurant Industry Cycles. It is expected that the above results can be used for improving investment performance through understanding the cyclical behavior of the economy and the restaurant industry. With that model, investors should be able to take part in the upswings while avoiding the cyclical downturns, and to structure a portfolio that keeps risk to a minimum. This should then presumably result in competitive investment decisions of firms, thereby improving the effectiveness of resource allocation. / Ph. D.

Law and Macro-Finance is a theoretical framework explaining the relationship between law and the macro-financial variables of liquidity and leverage. The framework's central theoretical claim is that strong creditor rights exacerbate the procyclicality of liquidity and leverage. Strong creditor rights have that effect because they create different incentives in different parts of the economic cycle. Strong creditor rights encourage creditors to lend in a credit boom, thereby increasing leverage and making the economy vulnerable to shocks through various leveraged-related channels. However, in a credit bust, the enforcement of strong creditors' rights can trigger an economic downturn or make it more difficult for the economy to recover from the shocks. The normative part of the Law and Macro-Finance framework revolves around regulating liquidity primarily through a countercyclical design of the strength of creditors' rights in bankruptcy and collateral law to ensure adequate levels of leverage in different parts of the economic cycle. The key elements of bankruptcy and collateral law that could be used for that purpose are the rules establishing the strength of money market investors' rights, including bankruptcy safe harbors, true sales doctrine, and rules around collateral rehypothecation.