The Cost of Delay: Evidence from the Ethereum Transaction Fee Market
by Yinhong “William” Zhao Abstract Delaying a financial transaction can be costly, but the cost of delay is difficult to estimate in traditional finance. I exploit the unique data offering and market design of the Ethereum blockchain to estimate the cost of delaying financial transactions in decentralized finance (DeFi). I construct a dynamic auction model […]
Short Term Effectiveness of Chinese Stock Connect Program — a Study of the Pricing Dynamics of Cross-listed Stocks
by Kaiyu Ren Abstract This thesis examines the pricing dynamics of cross-listed stocks in the Chinese A-share and Hong Kong H-share markets. By identifying an announcement-implementation window, I offer a fresh perspective on the short-term price adjustment of cross-listed stocks around the launch of the first Stock Connect program. My findings reveal a significant increase […]
Shades of Green: An Examination Into Second Party ESG Ratings In The Municipal Green Bond Market
by Harrison Zane Cole Abstract Since the end of the pandemic the market capitalization of green bonds and investor interest in sustainable investments has grown massively. The tidal wave of ESG funds has accompanied many claims of greenwashing and extreme variation in investment quality. While many investors focus on doing their own due diligence, second […]
After The Mega-Buyout Era: Do Public-to-Private Transactions Still Outperform?
By Bryn Wilson Abstract This thesis contributes to existing knowledge of the private equity asset class by examining whether public-to-private leveraged buyouts outperform public peers before and after the mega-buyout era (2005 – 2007). This paper considers the impact of four groups of value drivers on both market- and peer-adjusted returns. These value drivers include […]
Bang for Your (Green) Buck: The Effects of ESG Risk on US M&A Performance
by Richard Chen Abstract Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) is a fundamental corporate activity that has not received much attention from an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) perspective. In this paper, I analyze how buyer and target ESG risks affect US M&A performance in both the short and long run as measured by deal valuations and […]
Informing the Investor: A Comparative Analysis of the Importance of Pre-Initial Public Offering (IPO) Information on Stock Performance
by Paul Snyder Abstract This paper answers which available information about the company, macroeconomic and market environment, regulatory constraints, and offering before an IPO is most impactful on year-long buy-and-hold abnormal returns and how that changes across time while analyzing the IPO markets of 1999 and 2019. Data was gathered from predominantly company prospectuses and […]
The Elusive “Stock-Picker’s Market”: Dispersion and Mutual Fund Performance
By Jacob Epstein This paper explores the relationship between active mutual fund performance and market dispersion from January 1990 to December 2018. I find a significant positive relationship between dispersion and 4-factor alpha overall, providing some evidence of managerial skill. There are large differences in this relationship by decade and fund selectivity. The results suggest […]
Comparing the Performance of Active and Passive Mutual Funds in Developing and Developed Countries
By Nalini Gupta This paper seeks to test the hypothesis that developing countries or informationally inefficient countries should see higher returns for active mutual funds on average than passive funds and the trend should be reversed in developed nations or informationally efficient economies. This analysis is done using a cross section of eight countries, four […]
Forecasting Corporate Bankruptcy: Applying Feature Selection Techniques to the Pre- and Post-Global Financial Crisis Environments
By Parker Levi I investigate the use of feature selection techniques to forecast corporate bankruptcy in the years before, during and after the global financial crisis. Feature selection is the process of selecting a subset of relevant features for use in model construction. While other empirical bankruptcy studies apply similar techniques, I focus specifically […]
