After Freeman and Tse (1992), and Hayn (1995) indicated that positive-and negative-earning companies have different responses toward earning compositions based on the negative-earning companies¡¦ information content, Chamber (1996), Subramanyam and Wild (1996), Lipe, Bryant and Widner (1998) proposed the relationship between negative and future earning. In addition, Sloan (1996) suggested that accruals in the market have been over-valued. Xie (2001), however, pointed out that over-valued situation comes from manipulable earning compositions. Recently, Dopuch (2005), and Joos and Plesko (2002) reexamined the properties of negative-earning samples and found that investors¡¦ attitude on negative earnings will depend on predicted reversal possibility for valuation of a company. However, Taiwan has no studies on accrual evaluations after differentiating positive and negative earning for companies. This study adopts Mishkin (1983) evaluation model on abnormal accruals to analyze Taiwan 1391 listed company for the sample period from 1986 to 2005. The empirical results suggest that ERCs¡¦ of negative-earning companies are not significant; if the companies are differentiated by persist negative earning and transitory negative earning, investors tend to overprice transitory negative earning. In addition, investors tend to overprice the (discretionary) accruals positive-earning companies, but make accurate evaluation toward persistent earning companies with low reversal possibility. This study also found that persistency of positive-earning companies is longer than negative-earnings. Finally, by using logistic regression to differentiate the possibility of negative-earning accruals, there is no significant difference between the logistic regression model and cash flow classification from the empirical test. Based on the findings, how Taiwan security market response and evaluate discretionary accruals can be further understood.

Magister Commercii - MCom (Economics) / In post-apartheid South Africa, the thrust of macroeconomic framework and corresponding policies inaugurated by the first democratically elected government have been geared towards, amongst others, poverty alleviation, employment creation and economic growth. To date, South Africa still faces many challenges in the fight against poverty. These challenges are characterised by a dynamic nature, in that certain people transition in and out of poverty, whilst others remain deeply rooted in chronic poverty. Injecting resources towards addressing this complex nature of poverty is still one of the major problems faced by the South African government. In spite of the fact that there are many money-metric studies on poverty in South Africa, these studies failed to accurately depict the dynamic nature of poverty; throughout the years, many studies have only attempted to examine poverty using static analysis by comparing cross-sectional household surveys. It is for this foremost mentioned reason that these studies have produced information that is inadequate for the elimination of persistent poverty. Examining and identifying the characteristics of the different groups of poor using longitudinal data for the purpose of comparing poverty levels and trends observed over time perhaps better capture the nature of poverty in South Africa. Hence, in this study, panel data will be utilised to investigate the dynamic aspect of poverty for the evaluation of dynamics at the individual level. Using the balanced component of the panel data from the first four available waves of the National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) conducted in 2008-2015, the empirical findings indicate that the followings individuals are significantly more likely to be chronically poor: female Africans without Matric, aged younger than 25 years at the time of the first wave in 2008 (mean age being slightly above 20 years), living in traditional areas or farms in the KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Mpumalanga and Free State provinces, and inactive in the labour market. Also, they came from households headed by unemployed female Africans with relatively higher mean dependency ratio (above one) and household size (about seven) with either none or only one employed member, as well as associated with a greater likelihood of the households receiving social grant income and having inferior non-income welfare.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / Poverty in Nigeria has always been examined as a static phenomenon, although empirical studies established that, rather than being static, the poverty levels of individuals can change over time and people can enter and leave a transitory state of poverty. Many individuals live in poverty for a long period of time, the length of which is the defining characteristic of a state of chronic poverty. There has been little or no effort by researchers to distinguish households that are chronically poor from those that are transitorily poor. It is against this background that this study sought to investigate the extent of chronic and transitory poverty among households in Nigeria: specifically, what factors influence chronic and transitory poverty in Nigeria. / 2023

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Thesis advisor: Peter Gottschalk / Thesis advisor: Shannon Seitz / This dissertation contains two essays in labor economics. It provides a descriptive analysis on income volatility and develops a microeconomic model to study how married couples make joint decisions in response to such income volatility. The first essay examines the recent trends in household income volatility in the United States, West Germany and Great Britain, and compares household income volatility with individual income volatility. I estimate a formal error components model using the Cross-national Equivalence File from 1979 to 2004. I find that household income volatility, measured by the transitory variance of household income, accounts for more than half of the total income variance for all three countries. Despite the differences in the total household income variances among the three countries, the permanent variances converges since the late 1990s. The household earnings volatility is always lower than the individual earnings volatility for married couples, which suggests some evidence of intra-household insurance. In the second essay I examine whether married couples make joint labor supply decisions in response to each other's wage shocks. The study of this question aids in understanding the link between the recent rise in earnings volatility and household joint decisions. I develop an intra-household insurance model based on the collective framework, which allows for insurance against both permanent and transitory wage shocks from both partners. Estimation using Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that individuals increase labor supply in response to spouse's adverse wage shocks and such labor supply responses are larger when shocks are permanent than transitory. A household makes less transfer to the individual with more volatile income, which can be considered as a price for insurance.This intra-household insurance reduces earnings volatility by about 1.2% to 7.7%. These results suggest that joint labor supply decisions provide a smoothing effect on shocks to earnings and household income. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Esta pesquisa propõe uma reflexão sobre a produção da imagem fotográfica e seus desdobramentos num processo artístico. Busca investigar a presença de procedimentos adotados por artistas que pretendem ampliar o conceito de imagem fixa, propondo alterações formais e conceituais com uso de materiais diversos. O texto apresenta análises sobre obras de artistas contemporâneos em relação com os procedimentos adotados no meu processo artístico. Desta maneira, instaura-se um campo de interação entre vários modos do fazer artístico. Durante a construção desta tese, foram identificados núcleos de análises que norteiam a organização do pensamento sobre minha conduta criadora, constituindo assim, categorias de ações e reflexões sobre imagens transitórias e as dinâmicas interativas entre o real e o imaginário nos procedimentos fotográficos. As operações poéticas, aqui apresentadas, envolvem experiências com uso de imagens fotográficas que retornam ao tipo de material ou situação que lhe deu origem, assim como o uso de materiais que se associam de maneira metafórica ou metonímica. Tais escolhas, por consequência, promovem alterações nas qualidades visuais das imagens produzidas, fator importante para discutir o “valor” da imagem no cotidiano e seu estado transitório. Assim, os desvios produzidos nos registros fotográficos foram fundamentais para ampliar o conceito da fotografia documental e da fotografia artística, discutido aqui, a partir de uma articulação prática e reflexiva das “marcas do visível”. / This research aims at a reflection about the production of the photographic image and its unfoldings in an artistic process. It tries to investigate the presence of procedures applied by artists who intend to enlarge the concept of steady image, proposing formal and conceptual changes with various materials. The text presents some analyses about works of contemporary artists in relation with the procedures applied in my artistic process. Hence, it is established a field of interaction among various kinds of art making. During the writing of this thesis, it was possible to identify nucleuses of analyses that guide the thought organization about creating conduct, constituting this way, categories of actions and reflections about transitory images and the interactive dynamics between what is real and what is imaginary in photographic procedures. The poetic operations, here presented, involve experiences with use of photographic images that return to the type of material or situation from which it originated, as well as the use of materials that are associated in a metaphoric way. Such choices, as a consequence, generate changes in the visual qualities of the images produced, an important factor to discuss the “value” of the image on a regular basis and its transitory state. Therefore, the deviations produced in the photographic registers were fundamental to enlarge the concept of the documental photography, discussed here, beginning from a practical and reflexive articulation of the “marks of visible”.

L’objectif de cette thèse est proposer des méthodes de traitement des signaux ultrasonores pour améliorer le calcul des vitesses d’écoulements transitoires à l’intérieur des conduites en mode non intrusive et en conditions complexes de mesure. Par conditions complexes nous entendons des fortes et, respectivement, des basses vitesses d’écoulement ainsi que des mesures en contexte d’un écoulement transitoire ou turbulent. Classiquement, la vitesse de l’écoulement d’un fluide peut être estimée, de manière non intrusive, avec des ultrasons par le biais des débitmètres à temps de transit. Les débitmètres à temps de transit conventionnels sont basés sur l’émission alternée des pulses acoustiques mono-fréquentielles (donc, à bande étroite) et le calcul de la différence absolue entre les temps de vol dans le sens de l’écoulement (direct) et le sens opposé (inverse). La vitesse du fluide (et le débit), ou plutôt la précision de ces grandeurs, reposent principalement sur l’estimation de cette différence. La partie sensible de cette technique est le choix du seuil (en admettant que le signal reçu n’est pas affecté par d’autres phénomènes comme des échos parasites, atténuation excessive ou des effets Doppler) déterminé principalement de façon empirique: au-dessus de 50% ou 80% de la valeur maximale attendue du signal. Des techniques pour automatiser et réduire l’erreur de mesure sont tout à fait envisageables et qui assurent une précision acceptable dans des conditions de mesure presque idéales. Néanmoins, hormis les cas des figures ayant des conditions de mesure idéalisées, il existe plusieurs scénarii où les techniques actuelles sont déficitaires: le désalignement des capteurs, une vitesse d’écoulement trop forte qui conduit à l’effet «flow blow», les écoulements bi-phasiques et/ou la présence de l’effet Doppler. Ces constats, présentés dans le deuxième chapitre du manuscrit, nous ont conduit à envisager, dans le cadre de cette thèse, des axes de recherche qui ont pour objectif commun de fournir les outils de traitement du signal capables de lever les verrous opérationnels. Ainsi, les principes de traitement du signal envisagés pour répondre à cet objectif sont: le principe des signaux à large bande qui confère au système de traitement du signal une résolution plus fine et une meilleure robustesse aux perturbations; le concept de compressive sensing afin de reconstruire les échantillons perdus suite aux interférences au point de réception; le principe de formation de voie et le principe des multi-cordes qui permet d’évaluer le profil de vitesse dans une section de la conduite. / The purpose of this thesis is to propose ultrasonic signal processing methods in order to improve the transitory flow velocity non-intrusive detection through pipes, in complex measurement conditions. By complex measurement conditions, we refer to high or very low flow rates and also to transitory or turbulent flows. Usually, the flow velocity can be non-intrusive estimated, using ultrasonic flow meters based on transit time estimation. Conventional transit time flowmeters are based on the alternating emission of single-frequency acoustic pulses (ie, narrow-band acoustic pulses) and the calculation of the absolute difference between flight times in the direction of flow (direct) and in the opposite direction (reverse). The fluid velocity (and the flow rate), or rather the precision of estimation of these quantities, rest mainly on the estimation of this difference. The sensitive part of this technique is the choice of the threshold (assuming that the received signal is not affected by other phenomena such as echoes, excessive attenuation or Doppler effects) determined mainly empirically: above 50% or 80% of the maximum expected value of the signal. Techniques for reducing measurement errors are quite conceivable and provide acceptable accuracy under almost ideal measurement conditions. However, apart from the case with idealized measurement conditions, there are several scenarios where current techniques are deficient: sensor misalignment, excessive flow velocity which leads to the “flow blow” effect, two-phase flow and / or the presence of the Doppler effect. These facts, presented in the second chapter of the manuscript, led us to consider, within the framework of this thesis, research axes whose common objective are to provide the signal processing tools capable of lifting the operational locks. Thus, the signal processing principles considered to meet this objective are: the principle of wide-band signals which gives the signal processing system a finer resolution and better robustness to disturbances; the concept of compressing sensing in order to reconstruct the missing samples due to interference at the reception point; the principle of beamforming and the principle of multi-paths which makes it possible to evaluate the velocity profile in a pipe section.

In previous research on pricing mortality-linked securities, the no-arbitrage approach is often used. However, this method, which takes market prices as given, is difficult to implement in today's embryonic market where there are few traded securities. In particular, with limited market price data, identifying a risk neutral measure requires strong assumptions. In this thesis, we approach the pricing problem from a different angle by considering economic methods. We propose pricing approaches in both competitive market and non-competitive market. In the competitive market, we treat the pricing work as a Walrasian tâtonnement process, in which prices are determined through a gradual calibration of supply and demand. Such a pricing framework provides with us a pair of supply and demand curves. From these curves we can tell if there will be any trade between the counterparties, and if there will, at what price the mortality-linked security will be traded. This method does not require the market prices of other mortality-linked securities as input. This can spare us from the problems associated with the lack of market price data. We extend the pricing framework to incorporate population basis risk, which arises when a pension plan relies on standardized instruments to hedge its longevity risk exposure. This extension allows us to obtain the price and trading quantity of mortality-linked securities in the presence of population basis risk. The resulting supply and demand curves help us understand how population basis risk would affect the behaviors of agents. We apply the method to a hypothetical longevity bond, using real mortality data from different populations. Our illustrations show that, interestingly, population basis risk can affect the price of a mortality-linked security in different directions, depending on the properties of the populations involved. We have also examined the impact of transitory mortality jumps on trading in a competitive market. Mortality dynamics are subject to jumps, which are due to events such as the Spanish flu in 1918. Such jumps can have a significant impact on prices of mortality-linked securities, and therefore should be taken into account in modeling. Although several single-population mortality models with jump effects have been developed, they are not adequate for trades in which population basis risk exists. We first develop a two-population mortality model with transitory jump effects, and then we use the proposed mortality model to examine how mortality jumps may affect the supply and demand of mortality-linked securities. Finally, we model the pricing process in a non-competitive market as a bargaining game. Nash's bargaining solution is applied to obtain a unique trading contract. With no requirement of a competitive market, this approach is more appropriate for the current mortality-linked security market. We compare this approach with the other proposed pricing method. It is found that both pricing methods lead to Pareto optimal outcomes.

In previous research on pricing mortality-linked securities, the no-arbitrage approach is often used. However, this method, which takes market prices as given, is difficult to implement in today's embryonic market where there are few traded securities. In particular, with limited market price data, identifying a risk neutral measure requires strong assumptions. In this thesis, we approach the pricing problem from a different angle by considering economic methods. We propose pricing approaches in both competitive market and non-competitive market. In the competitive market, we treat the pricing work as a Walrasian tâtonnement process, in which prices are determined through a gradual calibration of supply and demand. Such a pricing framework provides with us a pair of supply and demand curves. From these curves we can tell if there will be any trade between the counterparties, and if there will, at what price the mortality-linked security will be traded. This method does not require the market prices of other mortality-linked securities as input. This can spare us from the problems associated with the lack of market price data. We extend the pricing framework to incorporate population basis risk, which arises when a pension plan relies on standardized instruments to hedge its longevity risk exposure. This extension allows us to obtain the price and trading quantity of mortality-linked securities in the presence of population basis risk. The resulting supply and demand curves help us understand how population basis risk would affect the behaviors of agents. We apply the method to a hypothetical longevity bond, using real mortality data from different populations. Our illustrations show that, interestingly, population basis risk can affect the price of a mortality-linked security in different directions, depending on the properties of the populations involved. We have also examined the impact of transitory mortality jumps on trading in a competitive market. Mortality dynamics are subject to jumps, which are due to events such as the Spanish flu in 1918. Such jumps can have a significant impact on prices of mortality-linked securities, and therefore should be taken into account in modeling. Although several single-population mortality models with jump effects have been developed, they are not adequate for trades in which population basis risk exists. We first develop a two-population mortality model with transitory jump effects, and then we use the proposed mortality model to examine how mortality jumps may affect the supply and demand of mortality-linked securities. Finally, we model the pricing process in a non-competitive market as a bargaining game. Nash's bargaining solution is applied to obtain a unique trading contract. With no requirement of a competitive market, this approach is more appropriate for the current mortality-linked security market. We compare this approach with the other proposed pricing method. It is found that both pricing methods lead to Pareto optimal outcomes.

Esta pesquisa propõe uma reflexão sobre a produção da imagem fotográfica e seus desdobramentos num processo artístico. Busca investigar a presença de procedimentos adotados por artistas que pretendem ampliar o conceito de imagem fixa, propondo alterações formais e conceituais com uso de materiais diversos. O texto apresenta análises sobre obras de artistas contemporâneos em relação com os procedimentos adotados no meu processo artístico. Desta maneira, instaura-se um campo de interação entre vários modos do fazer artístico. Durante a construção desta tese, foram identificados núcleos de análises que norteiam a organização do pensamento sobre minha conduta criadora, constituindo assim, categorias de ações e reflexões sobre imagens transitórias e as dinâmicas interativas entre o real e o imaginário nos procedimentos fotográficos. As operações poéticas, aqui apresentadas, envolvem experiências com uso de imagens fotográficas que retornam ao tipo de material ou situação que lhe deu origem, assim como o uso de materiais que se associam de maneira metafórica ou metonímica. Tais escolhas, por consequência, promovem alterações nas qualidades visuais das imagens produzidas, fator importante para discutir o “valor” da imagem no cotidiano e seu estado transitório. Assim, os desvios produzidos nos registros fotográficos foram fundamentais para ampliar o conceito da fotografia documental e da fotografia artística, discutido aqui, a partir de uma articulação prática e reflexiva das “marcas do visível”. / This research aims at a reflection about the production of the photographic image and its unfoldings in an artistic process. It tries to investigate the presence of procedures applied by artists who intend to enlarge the concept of steady image, proposing formal and conceptual changes with various materials. The text presents some analyses about works of contemporary artists in relation with the procedures applied in my artistic process. Hence, it is established a field of interaction among various kinds of art making. During the writing of this thesis, it was possible to identify nucleuses of analyses that guide the thought organization about creating conduct, constituting this way, categories of actions and reflections about transitory images and the interactive dynamics between what is real and what is imaginary in photographic procedures. The poetic operations, here presented, involve experiences with use of photographic images that return to the type of material or situation from which it originated, as well as the use of materials that are associated in a metaphoric way. Such choices, as a consequence, generate changes in the visual qualities of the images produced, an important factor to discuss the “value” of the image on a regular basis and its transitory state. Therefore, the deviations produced in the photographic registers were fundamental to enlarge the concept of the documental photography, discussed here, beginning from a practical and reflexive articulation of the “marks of visible”.