This essay analyses the extent to which individuals who bought Triss in Värnamo at Hemköp are rational in their decision to buy Triss. The expected value was found to be lower than the price of the Triss ticket. The results from the experiment suggests the individuals act irrationally as they did not accept to exchange their Triss for another Triss and an additional Mini Triss. The data from the observation suggests that individuals with a winning Triss tend to exchange it for a new Triss when the amount won is relatively small. When the amount won was relatively larger, the more likely the individuals were to claim the money. When a jackpot Triss was sold in the store, there was no significant increase of sales of Triss in the store, hence the individuals in the store did act rational in the sense they did not buy more or less Triss because of the jackpot was sold in the store. The results found in this paper suggest that individuals who buy Triss acts with a bounded rationality since their decision of buying Triss are driven by emotions, poor understanding of probabilities and risk under uncertainties.

My dissertation consists of two essays on mutual funds. The first essay examines the role of extreme positive returns on future fund flows using maximum style-adjusted daily returns (hereafter MAX) over the previous month. My results suggest that there is a positive and significant relation between MAX and future fund flows. The results are robust to controls for fund performance, fund size, age, turnover, fund fees, volatility, and skewness of fund returns. Of particular interest, this relation exits only in retail funds. Moreover, MAX is persistent from one month to the next, but MAX-based investment strategies are associated with lower risk-adjusted returns than investors could have achieved in otherwise similar funds. Overall, my analysis suggests that mutual fund investors are attracted to maximum style-adjusted daily returns, which is in line with the theoretical argument that investors exhibit a preference for lottery-like payoffs. These investors are successful in achieving a lottery-like return profile, but this strategy is costly in terms of expected returns The second essay studies the effect of recent and long-term mutual fund performance on future fund flows. I document that investors' response to recent performance depends on average long-term performance. In particular, a recent loser fund experiences outflows only if its longer-term performance is also poor. Similarly, recent good performance leads to more inflows only if the fund has also good long-run performance. In contrast, investors ignore recent performance if it provides a signal that conflicts with the longer-term signal. This implies that good fund managers with a longer-term focus will find it easier to attract future inflows than managers with a short-term horizon.

Abstract With the economic growth as well as the advent of the post-industry age in the 21st century, a variety of investment patterns for people to employ progressively appear. Moreover, there is a tendency in which people¡¦s traditional and conservative manners for investments gradually transform into aggressive ones with a preference of risks. For instance, it has been impossible nowadays for certain simple finance-managing mechanisms, such as the Certificate of Deposit, the Bond or even Stock Markets, to satisfy general investors¡¦ needs. Therefore, more and more financial products have become available, especially a lot of derivative securities like options, futures, or stock options. Furthermore, the activities of horseracing, dog racing or even lottery are no longer taboos in Taiwan. As far as the lotteries in most of the counties are concerned, the government is usually the main host, regarding them as additional effortless sources of tax revenue. During the earlier periods in Taiwan, the only lottery available was the national ¡§Ai-Guo¡¨ lottery issued by the government. Unfortunately, a lot of unlawful gambling gangs took advantage of the popularity of ¡§Ai-Guo¡¨ lottery by utilizing it as the sources of the so-called ¡§Da-Jia-Le¡¨ lottery, which was an illegal, yet popular underground gambling activity. The ¡§Da-Jia-Le¡¨ lottery not only corrupted the social values and caused a lot of criminal actions, but also made an acute and serious impact on regular economic operations. Consequently, the government resolutely called a halt on the ¡§Ai-Guo¡¨ lottery. Nevertheless, the prevailing gambling mania did decline; on the contrary, it further transformed into a covert and under-the-counter gambling operation attached to the Hong Kong lottery. The craze almost swept the entire country, resulting in more and more social problems and having troubled the authorities for a long period of time. To settle such a predicament, government decided to refer to the experiences of other countries, beginning to launch local lotteries in Taiwan, instead of prohibiting people from attending illicit gambling activities. On the one hand, the government would be able to set the lottery business back on right track and eliminate the root of the underground economic operations, which brought about many social problems. On the other hand, the local lottery would provide extra tax revenue for the administrations as well as more employment opportunities for handicapped people. Accordingly, Taiwanese Lottery was launched in the beginning of the year 2002. Until now, mainly due to the attraction of the surprisingly huge bonus shares offered by the lottery¡¦s highest prize, the public response is overwhelming. The social environment in which the stochastic investment actions become authorized and gradually prevail directly triggers the motivation of this research in further investigating the feasibility of the investment. The research takes Taiwan Public Welfare Lottery as an investment research case, exploring the game rules of lottery in an attempt to enhance the probability of winning prizes and further testing and evaluating the effectiveness of various simple biting tools adopted by the general public in order to obtain the most effective biting ways for individual investor¡¦s reference. The process of this study is as follows: 1. Testing the randomness of the winning prize numbers in Taiwan Public Welfare Lottery. 2. Estimating the possible distribution of the population via the statistical application. 3. Using the cluster analysis to induce the sub-cluster of the selected numbers according to the patterns of the historical prize numbers. 4. Making use of Markov Chain to select the sub-cluster, which is within an investor¡¦s upper limit of risks. And consequently, this study reveals the followings: 1. The winning prize numbers are random within study samples. 2. The statistic order of the winning prize numbers is £] distribution. 3. The cluster effect is slightly enhanced when the sub-cluster is chosen through the cluster analysis rather than random ways. 4. The application of Markov Chain has an obvious reinforcement on the selection of sub-cluster. 5. The so-called ¡§Smart Package Biting¡¨, which is adopted by the general public, cannot improve the winning possibility; however, depending on individual investor¡¦s needs, it could be a useful tool for risk management. Through a seemingly aimless random event, the research explores the possible development of the modeling process, so as to comprehend and experience a manager¡¦s mental course on decision making in a dynamic, capricious or even chaotic managerial environment.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 2001. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2965. Typescript. [Abstract] precedes thesis as preliminary leaves 1-2. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-80).

The first essay tests whether Chapter 11 restructuring outcomes are affected by time constraints in busy bankruptcy courts. Using the passage of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act in 2005 as an exogenous shock to court caseloads, I estimate the impact of bankruptcy caseload changes on the outcomes of firms in Chapter 11. I find that as bankruptcy judges become busier they tend to allow more firms to reorganize. Firms that reorganize in busy courts spend longer in bankruptcy, while firms that are dismissed from busy courts are more likely to re-file for bankruptcy within three years of their original filing. In addition, busy courts impose costs on local banks, which report higher charge-offs on business lending when caseload increases. Using novel data that has complete coverage of claims for 136 Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filings and that includes detailed information on claims transfers, in the second essay we provide the first empirical insight on how a firm's ownership changes during the bankruptcy process and how these changes impact bankruptcy outcomes. Pre-bankruptcy ownership concentration is important for the coordination of a prearranged bankruptcy filing and is associated with a faster bankruptcy resolution and a higher likelihood of a successful reorganization. However, as the trading of claims in bankruptcy concentrates ownership further, the probability of liquidation increases and recovery rates decrease. The third essay studies whether prize-linked savings (PLS) accounts, which offer random, lottery-like payouts to account holders in lieu of risk-free interest, can aid individuals in increasing savings levels by adding the chance to "win big." Using micro-level data, we show that PLS is attractive to a broad group of individuals across all age, race, and income levels. We find that financially constrained individuals and those with no other deposit accounts are particularly likely to open a PLS account. Participants in the PLS program increased their total savings on average by 1.1% of annual income, a 31% increase form the mean level of savings. Deposits in PLS do not cannibalize savings in standard savings products. Instead, PLS appears to act as a substitute for lottery gambling.

This dissertation comprises three chapters. The first chapter investigates whether consumers can help governments improve firm compliance with the Value Added Tax. It exploits quasi-experimental variation from a government program from Sao Paulo, Brazil that created monetary rewards for consumers to ask for receipts. To assess how incentives to consumers can be effective despite potential collusion opportunities, I construct datasets for 1 million firms, 40 million consumers, and 2.7 billion receipts. I estimate that revenue reported in retail increased by at least 22% over four years. The estimated compliance effect is stronger for sectors with a high volume of transactions and small receipt values, consistent with a model in which there are fixed costs to negotiate collusive deals to avoid issuing receipts. Furthermore, the effect has an inverted-U shape with respect to firm size. This result is consistent with a model of higher baseline compliance among larger firms, and in which shifts in audit probability from consumer monitoring increase in firm size. I find no effects on exit rates or formal employment decisions.

Submitted by Marcelo Welikson (mawelikson@gmail.com) on 2018-04-26T17:06:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Loterias V11 - Revisão pos apresentacao - VF.pdf: 2236712 bytes, checksum: 8c50f58ea3fd68c040707e1d5586be5c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by GILSON ROCHA MIRANDA (gilson.miranda@fgv.br) on 2018-05-08T14:09:04Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Loterias V11 - Revisão pos apresentacao - VF.pdf: 2236712 bytes, checksum: 8c50f58ea3fd68c040707e1d5586be5c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-08T19:34:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese Loterias V11 - Revisão pos apresentacao - VF.pdf: 2236712 bytes, checksum: 8c50f58ea3fd68c040707e1d5586be5c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-23 / In almost every country, as in Brazil, lottery revenues are earmarked for specific purposes, such as education, culture and health. However, many academic researches argue if the earmarked lottery revenue provides incremental budgets increases or simply acts as a substitute of resources, then it’s known as an economic phenomenon called Fungibility. This research aims to investigate, based on empirical studies, the occurrence of fungibility in federal lottery revenues in Brazil in education, security, culture and sports areas during the periods of 2000 and 2016. Unlike most academic literature about this subject, which has been concentrated in developed countries and produced empirical evidence in pro-fungibility in lottery revenues, the present study has shown empirical evidence against the fungibility in lottery revenues in Brazil. Therefore, this evidence reveals that it is beneficial to earmark lottery revenue in Brazil to investments programs in social areas / Em praticamente todos países, assim como no Brasil, as receitas das loterias são vinculadas a fins específicos, tais como educação, cultura e saúde. Entretanto, diversos estudos acadêmicos argumentam se a vinculação das receitas das loterias fornece um incremento ao orçamento ou simplesmente funciona como um substituto dos recursos utilizados, um fenômeno econômico conhecido como fungibilidade. Esse estudo objetiva investigar, baseado em um estudo empírico, a ocorrência de fungibilidade nas receitas das loterias federais no Brasil para as áreas de educação, segurança, cultura e esporte entre os períodos de 2000 a 2016. Ao contrário da maior parte da literatura acadêmica sobre o assunto, que tem concentrado em países desenvolvidos e tem encontrado evidências empíricas a favor da fungibilidade nas receitas com loterias, o presente estudo mostrou haver evidências empíricas contra a fungibilidade nas receitas com loterias no Brasil. Contudo, essa evidência mostra ser vantajoso vincular as receitas das loterias no Brasil aos programas nas áreas sociais.

The aim of the thesis is to provide the reader the information about the work of foundations and endowment funds in the Czech Republic. This work deals with the fiscal, financial and management accounting issues as well as contributions from the Foundation Investment Fund. Separate chapters are devoted to statutory audit of foundations and endowment funds. There is also mention of the financial support of these non-profit entities from the lottery companies. In the last part of this work there is a foundation sector survey and evaluation of publishing requirements of non-profit entities in relation to users of financial statements.

This thesis examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individual gambling behavior by testing whether ticket sales and revenues in the multi-state parimutuel PowerBall and MegaMillions lotteries decreased or increased between the pre-COVID and COVID periods in Florida, Texas, and Colorado. Two competing hypotheses are investigated. First, gambling activity may have decreased during COVID either due to increased risk-aversion induced by the pandemic, negative changes in household income from the loss of employment, or a combination of the two. Second, gambling activity may have increased during COVID either due to increased willingness to take risks, substitution of income previously spent on other recreational activities to consumption of gambling products, or a combination of the two. To test these hypotheses, I use linear regression methods to model sales of tickets and revenues over the period from May 2016 to March 2022. My findings reveal that ticket sales decreased across all three states and PowerBall revenues declined significantly in Florida during the COVID period. Additionally, the mean marginal effects of the lagged amount of the jackpot and the unemployment rate differ significantly between the periods.

Despite decades of research and promising strategies to ensure educational equity for all students, a significant disparity persists between the racial majority and marginalized students in the United States. Attaining educational equity is a complex problem illustrated by state-funded merit-based scholarships, including the State of Florida Bright Futures Scholarship. Since Florida's merit-based Bright Futures Scholarship Program's (BFSP) inception, the average percentage of black scholarship recipients has been minimal compared to other races. The equitable distribution of scholarship funds is critical to investigate since attaining a post-secondary education advances social mobility consequently breaking the cycle of poverty for lower socioeconomic students and closing the wealth gap for marginalized families. The Bright Futures case study utilizes a participatory policy analysis approach to help inform Legislators about policy alternatives to attain a more inclusive distribution of scholarship recipients. Data collection includes hosting four focus groups, two for Florida high school graduates and two for parents of Florida high school graduates. Additional data were collected through a facilitated conversation to identify policy alternatives to create a more racially inclusive scholarship distribution. The research concludes with a report on findings, discussion, and implications, along with recommendations to create a more inclusive Bright Futures Scholarship Program.