Business

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • (2020) Yao, Yufeng
    Thesis
    I investigate the role of foreign patents (patents issued in countries outside of the US) in US firms’ patent portfolios. Foreign patents are substantial and prevalent for US firms. Foreign patents form about 39% of the average patent portfolio of US firms. Firms with foreign patent applications are financially stable, and these firms have a higher percentage of foreign sales to total sales. Besides, I exploit exogenous shocks to foreign sales (free trade agreements and bilateral investment treaties) to identify the effect of foreign sales on the propensity to foreign patent. I find firms with a larger percentage of foreign sales have a higher propensity to foreign patent. Additional analysis reveals US firms have a higher propensity to patent in countries with strong patent rights.

  • (2020) Weng, Xiaochuan
    Thesis
    The Mandatory Bid Rule (MBR) requires a bidder who acquires control over a firm to make a general offer to all remaining shareholders to purchase their residual shares. It is the most powerful institution that requires controlling shareholders to share the control premium with other shareholders in a control transaction. The MBR is considered to be a key method of protection for minority shareholders, but nevertheless faces strong criticism over high implementation costs and an on-going debate over its effectiveness in practice. From a utilitarianism perspective, the paper shows the relevance between the MBR and the effectiveness of minority shareholder protection mechanisms in a jurisdiction of legal transplantation. Using Mainland China as the test sample where the MBR was adopted, removed then re-introduced, the paper employs the empirical research methodology to highlight market reactions when the rule is removed. The paper analyses the efficiency of the MBR and outlines the types of environments and jurisdictional specifications where the MBR can operate at an optimal level, and alternatively, where the MBR will not be value-maximizing. It offers ideal legislation suggestions for similar jurisdictions considering transplanting MBR.

  • (2021) Hickey, Nicole-Anne
    Thesis
    For decades scholars have detailed the benefits of having embedded workers in the workplace. Increasing embeddedness reduces the costs workplaces incur from workers’ withdrawal behaviours. In comparison, less is known regarding the costs of high embeddedness. Drawing on conservation of resource theory, this thesis examines the negative effects of embeddedness in conjunction with work role overload on burnout and withdrawal. It further considers the impact of workers’ physical and psychological maintenance of barriers between work and life (i.e., work-life boundary control flexstyles) on the aforementioned effects. The results of two waves of survey data from 243 aged care workers, analysed using a moderated mediation framework, showed work role overload and flexstyle moderate the mediated relationship between job embeddedness, burnout, and withdrawal behaviours (lateness, absenteeism, and turnover). These results underscore the importance of workers’ experience of work overload and their work-life control flexstyles when considering the impact of embeddedness on retaining, expanding, and sustaining the aged care workforce. These findings have important implications for employees, managers, and organisations in the aged care industry.

  • (2020) Rannard, Richard
    Thesis
    Information Technology (IT) outsourcing is a common practice, being adopted in many organisations in different industries and sectors of the worldwide market. Much of the research into IT outsourcing has focused on the use of IT outsourcing within private sector organisations, with less attention being paid to the use of IT outsourcing by government and the public sector. Relationships in IT outsourcing are of interest, juxtaposed against the older contracts in IT outsourcing; contracts and relationships are complementary, not substitutes. The purpose of this Study is to understand the differences between government versus private sector IT outsourcing, focusing on relationships. The researcher developed a classification of ‘tendencies’ in government IT outsourcing, characteristics that are more pronounced in government than in private sector IT outsourcing. Relational Exchange Theory was used to structure IT outsourcing into attributes, inherent characteristics that support the performance of the relationship (Goles and Chin, 2005). The researcher conducted an online survey, completed by government IT outsourcing managers, giving responses converted into tendency-attribute ‘combinations’ and analysed using statistical tests. The attributes were calculated using differing sample sizes, as some respondents abandoned the survey part-way through. Out of sixty combinations there were eighteen that were statistically significant at the 5% level. Most combinations came from Commitment, Consensus, Flexibility and Trust attributes. There are five tendencies out of ten that were strongly associated with these combinations. Some combinations appeared as if the scores have a bivariate distribution, but no clear evidence of bimodal distribution of the demographic variables was found. The low response rate to the survey was concerning; there was bias and sampling errors, there was inconsistent interpretation of the constructs, and there were respondent concerns about confidentiality. There is a need to investigate the four attributes, the five tendencies, and the demographics.

  • (2020) Bose, Amartya
    Thesis
    Racial disparities are widespread throughout the U.S justice system; in arrests and incarceration. These disparities are typically explained by appealing to racial biases among the police and the judiciary. I present a model in which disparities arise between groups in spite of unbiased actions on the part of these authorities. Voters determine the intensity with which legal sanctions are enforced against an offence that creates a negative externality. Individuals discount the harm caused by members of their own group taking the action. A county's population is comprised of two unequally sized groups, with the median voter drawn from the majority. In this model the intensity of law enforcement increases with the size of the minority. In states where counties are heterogenous in the composition of their population, this leads to group disparities at the state level. The intensity of law enforcement depends on both the level of policing and the strictness of the judiciary. In some states, voters can elect their judges and increase the legal sanction through judicial severity, while in other states judges are appointed. We should therefore expect that the relationship between the size of the minority population and the intensity of policing to be stronger in counties where judges are appointed. Using a county-level panel of arrests between 2000-2014 in the United States, I find that in states with appointed judges the level of policing is increasing with the share of the black population. A 1% higher share of black population leads to a 0.58% increase in the clearance rate of property crimes. I do not find a comparable effect in states with elected judges. This agrees with the predictions of the theoretical model.

  • (2021) Menon, Shreeyesh
    Thesis
    I estimate the macroeconomic effects of monetary policy shocks between 1996-2013 using Inoue and Rossi (2018)'s functional shock approach based on identifying shocks as shifts in the entire term structure of the yield curve around monetary policy announcements. The empirical framework is unique in how it provides a tool to study monetary policy across conventional and unconventional periods within a unified model. The principal contribution of this work is documenting the relationship between the nature of shifts induced in the yield curve by a monetary policy announcement and its macroeconomic impact. I find that shocks in the conventional period that have a larger impact on the long-term yields elicit similar macroeconomic responses as those in the unconventional period, with the responses being in line with standard theory. I also find that shifts in the long-term rates are policy-relevant and cannot be ignored even in the conventional period. Additionally, I correct the shock measure for information frictions and find the results to be qualitatively similar, but with a roughly two-fold magnification of the responses.

  • (2021) Besley, Michael
    Thesis
    Both industry and academic research document the sustained outperformance of Australian small capitalisation (cap) managers with regard to market benchmarks and standard academic models. In contrast to both their large company peers and overseas fund manager returns, the high relative returns generated by these small company managers have continued despite increased competition from new managers. This paper confirms the persistence of these anomalous returns and explores the sources of alpha generation by Australian small cap managers. The commonly used Carhart factor model does not explain the persistence of this alpha. Carhart alpha averages 0.3% per month for the group, with 22 out of 46 funds having statistically significant alphas. By adding a combination of factors to the standard Carhart model approximately two thirds of this alpha can be explained. These factors include betting against beta, avoidance of stocks with lottery characteristics, a preference for stocks with strong profitability and strong balance sheets while avoiding ‘junk’ stocks. After controlling for all these factors, average alpha declines to 0.08% per month with only four funds still having statistically significant alpha. While most managers avoid high beta and lottery stocks, the better performing funds demonstrate higher loadings away from lottery and distressed stocks and towards profitability factors than their poorer performing peers.

  • (2021) Bay, Joshua
    Thesis
    This paper explores extensive asset allocation possibilities and asset pricing tests shedding light into the cross-sectional and time-varying nature of combining multi-asset alternative risk premia. Existing literature in the multi-asset risk premia space is limited in terms of allocation studies as most research on combining factor exposures are only in the single-stock equity space. The literary gap is further exacerbated over the last decade with the explosion of new factors discovered. To address this, key asset allocation techniques commonly used in allocating across long-only traditional asset classes and equity factors are applied to multi-asset risk premia. The results seem to suggest the key assumptions of expected returns, followed by expected risks, higher moments and then lastly correlations in this order of importance are associated with building portfolios with higher risk-reward. To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the first papers that provide a comprehensive and practical study of a wide array of portfolio implementation approaches to multi-asset risk premia. This paper serves as an annex for investors to better understand the interaction and concentration of multi-asset risk premia exposures to meet their desired investment profiles.

  • (2022) Salman Zadeh Seysan, Rastin
    Thesis
    Using the VC industry as a laboratory, we investigate whether incidental in-person interactions between people working in close proximity facilitate their future collaboration on projects of significant economic value. Our analysis exploits urban topological features surrounding VC fund offices that generate exogenous variations in the likelihood of incidental in-person interactions. We show that such variations influence syndicate partner choice among VCs within narrowly defined (walkable) geographic zones. Workplace smoking bans affecting social smoking appear to reduce such effects. Weather patterns that exogenously restrict VC fund managers’ outdoor activity are also shown to moderate the role played by incidental encounters. Our results cannot be explained by VCs’ characteristics, prior relationships, and portfolio firms’ locations. Finally, syndicated deals driven by in-person interactions do not appear to generate superior returns.