The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the causes and consequences of foreign takeovers in the United States. In particular, I try to find whether real sector imperfections motivate foreign takeovers For a sample of 96 foreign takeover targets (taken over during the period 1975-1987), I empirically study the foreign takeovers in three stages: (i) the pre-takeover stage, (ii) the transaction stage, and (iii) the post-takeover stage The real sector imperfections model of foreign takeovers predicts that the motives of foreign takeovers in the United States are (a) to enter or expand the United States' market, and (b) to obtain synergistic gains by acquiring an appropriate target The empirical findings confirms the contention that foreign bidders are motivated by real sector imperfections in the United States. In particular, the findings in the pre-takeover stage show that foreign bidders acquire firms in markets characterized by high degree of marketing skills, as measured by the advertisement expenditure. Also, more takeover activity is targeted in industries which themselves make high level of foreign direct investment implying that the bidders use takeovers as a vehicle of quick entry to counteract rival firms' moves. The surprising result is that takeovers do not take place in high technology (as measured by R & D expenditures) industries. Another result pertaining to the target firms' industries shows that these takeovers take place in more mature, low growth industries. All these results, however, lose their significance when compensation for choice based sampling is made. The foreign targets, on an average, are smaller than the non-targets. The foreign bidders takeover firms with very low levels of intangible assets, as measured by the market-to-book value The findings of takeover-stage show that the wealth effect on the announcement of a takeover is significantly higher for foreign targets than for domestic targets. Also, foreign bidders pay a significantly higher premium for targets whose operations are related to their own. The results weakly indicate that the foreign bidders pay a relatively higher premium for firms with lower levels of intangible assets, showing their preference for such firms Finally, the findings of the post-takeover stage show that the foreign bidders use the targets as a base for expansion through new investments in forty cases. The bidders also divest a substantial portion of assets in thirty-one cases. Most of these divestitures are probably taken to correct past managerial mistakes. In twenty-two cases the targets report changes in top management positions. Finally, although, fifteen firms report post-takeover layoffs and investment cuts, the magnitude of such changes is very small The direct evidence on foreign takeover activity shows that foreign takeovers are good for United States and that there is no reason to restrict them / acase@tulane.edu

With panel data from 1981 to 2008 covering 105 countries, this paper investigates the impact of explicit deposit insurance generosity on financial systemic risk. The deposit insurance generosity is measured by the effective deposit coverage limit to GDP per capita ratio. While preliminary results from basic regressions suggest that the correlation between deposit coverage generosity and systemic risk might be U-shaped---an appropriate increase in coverage generosity can reduce systemic risk by building public confidence in the banking system, but may increase systemic risk when policies become too generous, because of moral hazard---this is yet to be confirmed by robust and more appropriate probit analysis. This preliminary finding suggests that the tipping points of effective coverage ratio where explicit deposit insurance systems start to increase systemic risk vary by country groups, and by whether time-fixed effect is controlled for. Further research is needed for confirming the correlation between coverage generosity and systemic risk.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 175-186).

This dissertation on the development and promotion of Mexico's tourism industry reconstructs the making of what is today that nation's third most profitable industry. Forged by Mexico's government in late 1928 as the cornerstone of state-led modernization programs, tourism became official business by 1929 when government officials, private investors, bankers and transportation companies agreed that it offered their nation an ideal vehicle toward progress once they began to rebuild after a long history of political violence and instability, shaky relations with the United States, economic underdevelopment and social revolution. Tourism suggests another framework for examining culture, politics and economics in Mexico following the revolution and during this period of intense nation building. More than just an economic solution, tourism fit into the state's broader cultural program to both modernize and unite Mexicans after the 1910 revolution. Tourism fostered nationalism and national unity. It encouraged the formation of tourist associations whose members pooled their resources to promote their nation's beauty and to finance infrastructure for the sake of national progress, peace and prosperity. Through tourism, government and private individuals debated and defined mexicanidad, or Mexicanness. In the end, promoters packaged a holiday in Mexico to U.S. tourists as a destination that embodied a harmonious convergence of modernity and antiquity---where one could visit the pyramids by day and drink martinis by night. By analyzing the formation, membership, activities and debates of official and private tourist groups between 1928--1946, this project reveals that to develop tourism the government relied on cooperation and capital from an elaborate network of promoters in Mexico and abroad. Moreover, Mexican financiers almost exclusively funded the construction of tourist infrastructure that visibly transformed Mexico by 1946 from a provincial, undeveloped nation to an urban, modern one. Scholars have examined these transformations as a product of President Miguel Aleman, 1946--52 whose administration was marked by corruption and U.S.-directed development. This research uncovers early origins of Mexican-led progress, and demonstrates how tourist development between 1928--1946 decidedly paved the way for Mexico's economic "miracle," and its era of political and social stability after World War II.

A current outgrowth of the nearly four decades of research in capital structure is the investigation of linkages between the firm's decisions and factors outside of strictly financial determinants. The three essays that comprise this dissertation offer contributions to this area of research. The first essay explores the connection between the product market and the firm's financial decisions. I hypothesize that market power acts as a buffer against strategic action on the part of a competitor and the existence of market power allows the firm to hold more debt in its capital structure. Using a binary choice model, I find that firms with market power have a higher propensity to issue public debt rather than public equity. In addition, no evidence is found suggesting agency costs have a significant impact on the security issue decision. The second essay is an extension of an analytical model of the free-cash-flow hypothesis developed by Stulz (1990). Debt can increase the value of a firm by reducing the amount of cash the manager can misappropriate or invest in personal projects. The extension is developed under the assumption that the stockholders do not know with certainty the mean of the cash flow distribution. The extension drives two main results: one, the amount of debt in the capital structure of a firm is dependent upon the precision of the shareholders' a priori estimate of future cash flows; and, two, the maturity of the firm's debt is dependent upon the shareholders' estimate of the mean of future cash flow. The third essay empirically explores the relationship between the firm's maturity structure of debt and the firm's maturity structure of assets. New variables are constructed to specifically test the maturity-matching hypothesis. The dependent variable is the change in average maturity of debt caused by a new issue. An independent variable measures the difference between the average maturity of debt and the average maturity of assets. I find statistically significant evidence supporting the maturity-matching hypothesis and inconsistent support for the agency hypothesis.

Generic advertising campaigns promote the general qualities of a product to customers thus improving the demand of all firms who market that product. Recent national campaigns of this nature include the milk advertising campaign "Got Milk?" and the advertising campaign by florists "Think Flowers." The focus of this dissertation is to study, through analytical modeling and an experimental economics perspective, the strategic issues that arise in the organization of such an advertising campaign. We investigate two mechanisms used in practice--Voluntary Contribution Mechanisms (VCMs) and Mandated Contribution Mechanisms (MCMs). In the former, industry members can decide if they want to participate and if so, how much they wish to contribute. Here, the strategic problem relates to achieving complete participation. Specifically, either "free-rider" or "cheap-rider" equilibria obtain, leading to sub-optimal advertising. In order to overcome this, we propose the Provision Point VCM where the campaign is conducted only if contributions exceed a pre-determined threshold. Here, optimal advertising is always a feasible equilibrium. We experimentally investigated the impact of these two VCMs, face-to-face communication and completeness of information on contributions. Managers with experience in such advertising also participated in our study. The findings from the forty four economic experiments were: (1) Simple VCM led to lower efficiency in comparison to Provision Point VCMs. (2) When the provision point was set at the Pareto Optimum, a high efficiency and provision percentage resulted. (3) Communication always led to gains in efficiency. A weak long-term effect was found in the Simple VCM case and a strong long-term effect was found in the Provision Point VCM case. (4) The efficiency in the complete and incomplete information cases for both Simple and Provision Point VCMs were very similar. This is a surprising result. In MCMs, the government stipulates a payment rule by legislation and all industry members must comply. Firms can reduce their share of the advertising budget only by under-stating privately held information, leading to sub-optimal advertising. We design a mechanism that overcomes this by ensuring that truthful information revelation is the dominant strategy for all firms.

<p> The main objective of this dissertation is to evaluate the unexpressed effect of Cross-Listing on stock prices of Companies from Latin America, in particular, I expect stock prices to get closer to their intrinsic or true value after cross-listing. Specifically, I test the impact of the issuance of ADRs on two market microstructure variables, namely, volatility and efficiency, which will be assessed throughout the usage of three models: the GARCH model, which measures the impact on volatility, second, the news impact curve, which assesses the effect of volatility over bad news, and third, the proper ARMA model is specified to gauge efficiency.</p><p> Overall, in 82% of the cases at least one result is as expected, and 49% of results are consistent with the hypotheses. First, in the case of the GARCH model, 59% of the results are as expected, particularly in the case of Brazil 73% of the results are as expected, in the case of Argentina 43% are as expected, Mexico 50%, Chile 40%, Peru 50% and Colombia 100%. On the other hand, 32% of the results show improvements in terms of efficiency, specifically, in the case of Brazil 40% of the results are as expected, in the case of Argentina 43% are as expected, Mexico 25%, Chile 0%, Peru 50% and Colombia 0%. Finally, in the case of the News Impact Curve test, 56% of the results are as expected, in the case of Brazil 67% of the results are as expected, in the case of Argentina 43% are as expected, Mexico 0%, Chile 60%, Peru 100% and Colombia 100%. In contrast, assessing the effect of companies that issue ADRs versus the competition, I find that in 80% of the cases, companies that cross-list are better-off in terms of expected results when comparing with the competitors. Moreover, dividing the findings before and after the introduction of electronic systems in each country, I find that in general, before the introduction of electronic systems, overall, there is a consistency of 54% in the whole region, whereas after the introduction of electronic systems, there is a consistency of only 38% of expected results. This outcome suggests that once the electronic systems are implemented there is an improvement in terms of the information environment, thus reducing the effects of crosslisting This study contributes to the financial literature because it tests the impact of crosslisting on two specified market microstructure variables through the utilization of novel models. </p>

<p> The advances in information technologies and the Internet significantly promote the prosperous growth of electronic commerce in recent years. Simply surfing the Internet allows consumers to conveniently explore endless product choices and a flood of related product information. As one of the most important sources of product information, Word-of-Mouth (WOM) helps consumers assess product quality, reduces decision risk without physical trials, and thus facilitates locating their best matches. WOM volume on the Internet has been rising fast while the Internet also unprecedentedly enhances the reach of WOM. As a result, online WOM could significantly influence consumer decision-making. More and more firms are embracing and applying online WOM marketing as a complementary strategy for advertising to increase sales. Even so, not much has been known regarding the mechanism underlying the WOM effect on online consumer behavior. A deeper understanding of the economic impact of online WOM is needed to provide practitioners insightful guidance on information systems design and the allocation of firm resources to more effectively develop online WOM marketing strategies. </p><p> This dissertation seeks to shed light on online WOM effect from three angles using a three-essay structure. The first essay of this dissertation investigates how a demand side factor (online user-generated WOM) interplays with a supply side factor (product variety) to affect a product's popularity in the online market where product choices are abundant and consumers can easily access product information. Extant research primarily looks into either demand side or supply side justifications for the heterogeneity of consumption pattern. Alternatively, this study highlights that consumers' reliance on online user reviews to choose products is significantly influenced by the quantity of products available. </p><p> In addition, this dissertation also explores the differential impact of online WOM created by different types of reviewers on online user choices. While consumers are widely exposed to both online user reviews and professional reviews, those two sources of WOM information are generally believed to influence user choices independently. However, an in-depth mediation analysis conducted in the Bayesian framework shows that professional reviews influence online user choices not only directly but also indirectly through the volume of online user reviews. This study also proposes a more robust hierarchical structure to model the interaction effect between online user reviews and product variety, refining the first essay. </p><p> Following this line of inquiry, this dissertation further studies the impact of the distribution of online WOM across retailing and third-party websites on consumers' purchasing decisions. In parallel with the flocking WOM available on the Internet, nowadays consumers are able to reach almost every piece of online WOM information relevant to their interested products. The distribution of WOM information across the Internet may accordingly influence consumers' search costs for product information and affect their final decisions. This research has found empirical evidence that both the dispersion of WOM volume and variation of WOM valence across the Internet significantly influence online retail sales.</p>

<p> Economic development has become a key issue in the United States. The recruitment and retention of public and private development is a pivotal strategy for increasing the economic prosperity of a region or nation as well as its inhabitants. While all segments of the nation benefit from economic development, the importance of this issue is paramount to the rural areas where income, living conditions, and educational levels may not mirror those of their urban counter part. As a result, rural regions are particularly interested in attracting both public and private investments to improve their economy, increase their tax base, and increase the standard of living for those residents living in a given region. </p><p> This project utilizes GIS siting analysis models to explore potential areas for economic development in the rural area of Fulton County. In this project, ten variables were analyzed to determine suitable sites for economic development based on physical variables, transportation variables, and public utility infrastructure variables. These variables were selected based on a review of relevant literature based on economic development in rural areas. Site suitability maps were developed using a multi-criteria decision making model and weighting each variable with respect to cost incurred to the taxpaying public. The final map displays multiple areas of high suitability for light industrial development based on an analysis of these factors as they relate to Fulton County.</p>

Bilateral air service agreements have determined the nature of international air services through regulation of entry, service quality and pricing. Negotiations for such treaties reflect each government's aim to gain at least an equivalent right before granting certain traffic rights to the other party. Given these negotiated rights as endowments, each airline determines its strategies within the designated market. Station routing models and profit functions identify each firm's strategies. Using stage length as a proxy for network type, efficiency forecasting of stochastic frontiers measures productive efficiency for three primary transpacific airlines. The inclusion of input and output prices accounts for relative costs and revenues. Results indicate that international route structures must be linked to an extensive domestic route network in order to exhibit high productive efficiency. Changes in relative costs through exchange rate fluctuations furthermore reflect the vulnerabilities in the international trade of services.