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 […]
Private Equity Buyouts and Strategic Acquisitions: An Analysis of Capital Investment and the Timing of Takeovers in the United States
By Anthony Melita This paper investigates how motivational differences between agents who execute private equity buyouts and those who execute strategic (corporate) acquisitions may influence the timing of capital investment via takeovers. This paper synthesizes prominent merger theories to inform macroeconomic variables that may drive acquisitions. I find a significant negative expected effect of […]
An Unequal Dream: The Mortgage Rate Premium Paid by Black Communities
By Michael Nicholson This paper analyzes loan pricing discrimination against predominantly black communities in U.S. mortgage markets. Building on previous literature, this paper posits that ceteris paribus predominantly black communities continue to face economically significant discrimination in mortgage pricing. Ultimately, this paper concludes that predominantly black communities face 10-14 basis points of pricing discrimination […]
Determining the Drivers of Acquisition Premiums in Leveraged Buyouts
By Peter Noonan This thesis analyzes factors that determine acquisition premiums paid by private equity firms in public to private leveraged buyouts. Building off of established literature that models the acquisition premiums paid in corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A), this paper considers factors that influence a private equity firm’s willingness to pay (referred to […]
Investigating Underpricing in Venture-Backed IPOs Using Statistical Techniques
By Michael Tan This paper concerns applying statistical methods to investigate under-pricing in VC-backed technology Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) since the great recession. In particular, firm, market, and IPO-specific variables were explored to determine if there were any significant relationships to under-pricing. The paper focused on the Bank Preference theory of under-pricing, where under-pricing […]
Where Did the Money Go? Impact of the ECB’s Corporate Sector Purchase Program on Eurozone Corporate Spending
By Tina Tian Slow corporate growth and a lack of corporate investment has plagued European markets for the past decade. As a response, the ECB began the Corporate Sector Purchase Program (CSPP) in 2016 to provide liquidity to corporate debt markets through bond purchases. Four years after the start of the program, this paper […]
Investigating the Costs of Religious Observance: Cross-Country Analysis of Islamic Banking
By Myla Swallow and Richard Vargo This study regresses key variables that influence the profitability of Conventional and Islamic banks as measured by Return on Average Assets, to determine the impact of Islamicity on the profitability of the banks in a given country. The study compares 36564 banks in 77 countries belonging to both Islamic […]
The Impact of Post-IPO Private Equity Ownership on Long-Term Company Performance
By Maria Suhail and Cipriano Echavarría This thesis contributes to existing knowledge of private equity (PE) by analyzing the impact of PE ownership post-IPO upon the long-term performance of companies. It considers whether companies perform better when PE funds maintain their ownership stakes post-IPO and whether this performance is also impacted by the degree of […]
Social Capital and Financial Development after Economic Shocks: Evidence from Italy after the Financial Crisis of 2007-2009
By Sujay Rao & Ethan Lampert Like traditional forms of capital, social capital – an intangible measure of an individual’s social networks, trust in institutions, and participation in civic life – has implications for personal and financial behavior. Individuals from educated, well established backgrounds with fruitful family ties may be more amenable to opening new […]
Leverage and Varying Metrics of Firm Performance
By Preston Jiateng Huang This paper sets out to examine the effect of leverage on company performance. Drawing on the methodology of key prior research, this study finds that leverage has a consistent negative effect on firm growth; by contrast, no such negative impact was found on return on equity. Importantly, such patterns hold throughout […]
