ABSTRACT MANAGERIAL INCENTIVES AND TAKEOVER WEALTH GAINS By EBRU REIS DECEMBER 5, 2006 Committee Chair: Dr. Jayant R. Kale Major Department: Finance This study examines the relationship between managerial equity incentives and takeover wealth gains both for target and acquirer firms. Although there is some research about the effect of acquirer managers’ incentives on acquirer wealth gains, this paper is one of the first to investigate the effect of target managers’ incentives on the wealth effects of target firms in corporate takeovers. In addition, prior research has focused on the alignment effect of equity incentives in takeovers. However, takeovers provide an opportunity to liquidate personal equity portfolio for managers who hold an undiversified portfolio of their firms’ stock. In this study, I identify two hypotheses that potentially explain the effect of target managers’ incentives on wealth gains. While incentive alignment hypothesis predicts a positive relationship, diversification driven-liquidity hypothesis predicts a negative relationship between target managerial incentives and target wealth gains. I use a sample of 656 successful and 104 failed acquisitions over the period 1994-2003 to test these competing hypotheses. I find that for targets that are less (more) diversified, equity incentives are negatively (positively) related to wealth effects. I also find that the target managerial incentives increase the success probability of a takeover bid and this positive effect is less pronounced for diversified target managers. Based on these results, I conclude that incentive alignment argument is dominated by liquidity argument in less diversified target firms, however, holds in diversified firms. For acquirer managers, I do not find any evidence that supports incentive alignment or diversification arguments.

I investigate the relation between firm risk and firm transparency over the period 1992-2006 and find that the level of firm transparency and the level of firm risk are negatively related. I also find that higher CEO pay-performance sensitivity (delta) works to mitigate this inverse relationship. This result is consistent with Hermalin and Weisbach (2007) who suggest that managers reduce risk to protect their pay and performance evaluations under higher levels of firm transparency. I further find that firms in high technology industries are more likely to increase risk relative to firms in other industries when transparency is high. Finally, I develop an additional proxy for transparency based on the Standard and Poor’s Transparency and Disclosure Score. Results using this proxy are generally consistent with my findings that there is an inverse relationship between risk and transparency and that CEO pay-performance sensitivity lessens this relationship.

Pirminis dėmesys neteisėtų nuteisimų problemai buvo išskirtinai susijęs su atskiromis bylomis ir pavieniais išteisinimų atvejais, tačiau vėliau šis reiškinys susilaukė didesnio mokslinio susidomėjimo. Pripažįstant, jog neteisėtai nuteisti asmenys ir visuomenė patiria didelę žalą, plačiau imtasi analizuoti ir valstybės civilinės deliktinės atsakomybės tokiais atvejais klausimas. Galiojantys nacionaliniai įstatymai, Tarptautinis Pilietinių ir Politinių Teisių Paktas, Europos Žmogaus Teisių Konvencija įtvirtina asmens teisę siekti kompensacijos neteisėtų nuteisimų, suėmimų ir sulaikymų atvejais, tačiau atlikti tyrimai visgi rodo, jog nevisada užtikrinamos išteisintųjų ar asmenų, kurių atžvilgiu procesas nutraukiamas reabilituojančiais pagrindais, teisės į deramą kompensaciją. Pasigendant tyrimų susijusiu klausimu Lietuvoje, šiuo darbu mėginama išsiaiškinti, ar asmuo turi teisę reikalauti iš valstybės atlyginti su bylos tyrimu susijusias išlaidas, patirtą turtinę ir neturtinę žalą, nuostolius, ir ar valstybė turi pareigą šią žalą atlyginti, kuomet asmenys visiškai išteisinami arba procesas jų atžvilgiu nutraukiamas reabilituojančiais pagrindais. Darbe apžvelgiami įvairūs susiję probleminiai aspektai, atliekama Europos Žmogaus Teisių Teismo bei Lietuvos teismų praktikos analizė. Pateikiama apžvalga, kaip šie klausimai reglamentuojami ir kokios kompensavimo sistemos taikomos įvairiose valstybėse, bei kokia yra šios teisės įtvirtinimo reikšmė visuomenei, valstybei ir konkrečiam... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The initial focus on the issue of wrongful convictions (miscarriages of justice, judicial errors or errors of justice) was exclusively related to the research into individual cases of acquitted persons, but this subject has also been recently analysed by the scholars of criminal and civil law. Unfortunately, in Lithuania no significant reasearches on this matter have been produced so far, and this master thesis is an attempt to analyse the aspects relating to the compensation probabilities for the wrongfully convicted, arrested and detained people in Lithuania as well as in other jurisdictions. While generally accepting the extremely severe negative consequences for the unjustified restrictions or deprivations over the basic human right – the right to freedom – the indemnification aspects are usually left aside. This question is also problematic due to its interdisciplinary nature: the unlawful actions of the investigators, prosecutors or the court have to be proven and the person has to be convicted under the criminal acts or criminal procedure acts; yet, the compensation for those actions is awarded following civil law procedures provided it fulfills the prerequisites set by civil laws. The institution of the civil tort liability of the state is analysed in regard of this specific matter. The applicable Lithuanian legislation, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms refer... [to full text]

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Abstract not available. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2011.

This thesis presents the design, analysis, and numerical and experimental evaluation of nonlinear controllers for co-operation among several hydraulic robots operating in the presence of significant system uncertainties, non-linearities and friction. The designed controllers allow hydraulically driven manipulators to (i) co-operatively handle a rigid object (payload) following a given trajectory, (ii) share the payload and (iii) maintain an acceptable internal force on the object. A general description of the kinematic and dynamic relations for a hydraulically actuated multi-manipulator system is presented first. The entire mathematical model incorporates object dynamics, robot dynamics, hydraulic actuator functions and friction dynamics. For the purpose of simulations, a detailed numerical simulation program of such a system is also developed, in which two three-link planar robot manipulators resembling the Magnum hydraulic manipulators manufactured by ISE, interact with each other through manipulating a common object. The regulating control problem is studied next, in which the desired position of the object and the corresponding desired link displacement change step-wise. Initially, a controller is designed based on a backstepping technique, assuming that full knowledge of the dynamics and kinematics of the system is available. The assumption is then relaxed and the control system is analyzed. Based on the analysis, the controller is then modified to account for the uncertainty of the payload, robot dynamic parameters and hydraulic functions. Next, the regulating controller is extended to a tracking controller, which allows the object to follow a given trajectory and is robust against parameter uncertainties. Additionally, an observer is added to the controller to avoid the need of acceleration feedback. To investigate the effect of friction force, the above controllers are examined by introducing the most recent and complete LuGre friction model into the system dynamics. The tracking controller is then redesigned to compensate the effect of friction. Observers are designed to observe the immeasurable friction states. Based on the observed friction states and estimated friction parameters, an appropriate friction compensation scheme is designed which does not directly use velocity in order to avoid the need of acceleration feedback by the controller. Finally, the problem of “explosion of terms” coming from the backstepping method is solved by using the concept of dynamic surface control in which a low pass filter is integrated to avoid model differentiation. Simulations are carried out for analysis of the control system and verification of the developed controllers. Experimental examinations are performed on an available hydraulic system consisting of two single-axis hydraulic actuators.

The theoretical argument of this study is that economic globalization, by default, exerts a downward pressure on the social policies of states largely through the operations of transnational corporations. However, since globalization’s effect on social policy is conditional on endogenous political forces such as regime type, democratization, electoral competition and political participation, its proclivity to retrench the welfare state is averted by the preferences of political actors and institutions to expand social spending. This argument found consistent empirical support via a series of cross-section regressions that estimated the interactive effects of economic globalization and various measures of domestic political institutions and affiliations for a sample of 120 countries from 1970 to 2002. Case studies of South Korea, Chile and Spain provided additional qualitative evidence for the study’s theoretical argument.

<p>[1] s., s. 4-70: sammanfattning, s. 73-153: 4 uppsatser</p> / digitalisering@umu