This thesis consists of two essays. Both essays are related to customer base concentration. In the first essay, I examine the impact of customer base concentration on selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs stickiness. With a sample of 65,549 firm-year observations from 9,460 unique firms on the US market from 1980 to 2012, I find that concentrated customer base accentuates SG&A costs stickiness, even after controlling for related variables such as asset intensity, employee intensity, firm size and firm age. Further findings indicate that the positive association between customer base concentration and SG&A costs stickiness is enhanced if supplier firms are in durable industry (SIC 3400-3990), or have more relationship-specific investments, but weakened if the duration of the relationship between a supplier firm and its customer base is longer. The findings are robust to alternative measures of major variables and to alternative testing models. In the second essay, I examine the impact of customer base concentration on investment efficiency. With a sample of 57,852 firm-year observations from 12,123 unique firms on the US market from 1980 to 2013, I find that concentrated customer base is positively associated with investment efficiency improvement. The findings are evidenced by the testing results that concentrated customer base strengthens the positive association between investment activities and investment opportunities. From shareholders’ perspective, concentrated customer base also strengthens the contribution of investment expenditure to shareholders’ value. In addition, I find that the positive association between customer base concentration and investment efficiency is influenced by some salient features of the supplier-customer relationship. Generally, such association is more pronounced if the supplier firm’s industry share is larger; if the supplier firm relationship-specific investment is greater; and if the supplier-customer relationship is longer. The findings are robust to a number of sensitivity tests. Keywords: customer base concentration; SG&A costs stickiness; investment efficiency; agency problem; information asymmetry

This dissertation consists of three essays on Finance and Innovation. The first essay argues that openness of research inputs can enable greater exploration of new research lines, particularly by academic researchers. We test this hypothesis by examining a natural experiment: NIH agreements that reduced the access costs imposed on academics regarding certain genetically engineered mice. We find that increased openness encourages the exploration of more diverse research paths, and does not reduce research into the creation of new genetically engineered mice. Overall, our findings highlight a neglected cost of strong intellectual property restrictions: lower levels of exploration leading to a reduction in the diversity of research output. The second essay analyzes clustering in firms’ layoff behavior and its links to financial markets. We develop a model in which managers delay layoffs during good economic states to avoid damaging their reputation. We test the model’s predictions by comparing the layoff behavior of publicly-listed and privately-held firms, and find that the layoffs of public firms are twice as sensitive to recessions. In addition, we find that the firms which cluster layoff announcements at high frequencies are also more likely to engage in mass layoffs during recessions. Our findings suggest that reputation management is an important driver of layoff policies both at daily frequencies and over the business cycle, and can have significant macroeconomic consequences. The third essay explores the relationship between funding availability and innovative output. I develop a theory of credit constraints in multi-stage research, and predict that greater funding leads to both transitions into the private sector and a shift toward shorterhorizon projects. Analyzing the patent output of a panel of life-science researchers linked to top universities, I find that greater funding availability leads to an increase in transitions from academia to the private sector and a higher quantity of patent output, but a decrease research value, innovative scope, and the time horizon of subsequent applications. These results indicate that profit-motivated funding not only increases the quantity of innovation, but also leads to a significant shift in the type of projects being pursued.

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Does the small business concern in this country have access to sufficient amounts of growth capital? For the past several years there has been much controversy concerning this question. Articles have been written both pro and con voicing opinions as to whether small businesses are being discriminated against in the acquisition of long-term loans to finance growth and business expansion. The majority of the written information on this subject appears to support the theory that too many small business firms are under-capitalized and the sources of long-term investment and growth funds are seriously limited to the small businessman.

本研究以台灣地區上市櫃科技產業公司1991年至2008年資料為研究對象，分析高科技產業無負債經營的情形及其決定因素。實證結果發現部份台灣高科技產業公司習慣以長期零負債方式在經營公司，並未追求資金成本最小化，而且無負債經營的公司有隨著時間漸漸增加的趨勢。 本研究也發現高科技產業公司無負債公司比例與公司規模成反比，規模越小無負債比例越高，同時規模越小的無負債公司有較多的舉債限制;無負債公司的獲利能力比負債公司佳，而且有較多的投資機會;小型無負債公司藉由高現金股利提高現金殖利率，大型無負債公司則發放較多的現金股利以減輕代理問題;無負債公司在現金股利未分派給股東前會將公司內部資金當成短期權益資金使用，故無負債公司自由現金流量較獲利較差的負債公司充裕;無負債公司有較高的股票評價，但股票報酬率則與負債公司無顯著不同;無負債公司利用較多的非負債稅盾，故所得稅率並未高於負債公司，最後本研究發現台灣高科技公司是否無舉債經營之機率與競爭同業整體無負債比例呈正相關。 / This study explores the determinants of debt-free high technology firms in Taiwan using data from 1991-2008. We find that some firms in Taiwan’s hig-tech industry operate without any debt for a long time and the number of debt-free firms increases overtime. Our results also show that the percentage of debt-free firms varies inversely with firm size. When the size of the company is small, the percentage for them to be debt free firms is higher. We find that there are more borrowing constraints for small debt-free firms in Taiwan and debt-free firms are more profitable, have more investment opportunities. Small debt-free firms tend to pay high cash dividend to increase the yield of stock. Large debt-free firms pay high dividend to mitigate agency problem between managers and shareholders. We find that debt-free firms use retained earning as short term equity capital to generate more free cash flow than debt firms before cash dividend dispatched to shareholders. We also find that debt-free firms have better stock valuation but their stock return are similar to those firms with debts. There is no evidence that debt-free firms pay higher income tax rate than debt firms because they tend to use more non-debt tax shelter. Our results show that the probability for firms to operate with debt is positively related to the average percentage of competitor’s debt-free ratio in the same industry.

A small, private university was the focus of this study, where rural first-generation college (FGC) students withdraw at higher rates than their continuing-generation counterparts. An objective of the university leadership is to increase student retention to foster a greater likelihood of degree completion. The research problem was the inability to retain rural FGC students. The purpose of the study was to explore parental support that promoted rural FGC student retention. The research questions addressed the students' perceptions about parental support and their decisions to remain enrolled. The research methodology was a qualitative case study design. Data were collected through semi structured interviews with a purposeful sample of 12 full-time FGC students from rural residential zip codes or counties. Transcribed interviews were coded and analyzed following a combination of approaches described by Creswell and Stake. The analysis revealed 6 themes: (a) parental support, (b) extended family relationships, (c) campus connection, (d) financial support, (e) community networks, and (f) institutional support. The results suggested that parental support shaped the students' decisions to remain enrolled. Based on the findings, a parent development project was designed to help university leadership and parents of rural FGC students engage collaboratively to improve retention. This study may contribute to positive social change, in that the resulting project may improve the students' ability to persist to degree completion and potentially give back to their rural communities.