Fact or Fluff: Does Wording Used by Gene Editing Companies Affect Investor Behaviors?
by Thomas Freireich Abstract The writing style a startup uses to portray itself has an impact on investors’ perceptions of them, subsequently affecting their venture capital decisions. This funding is particularly important given the prominence of venture capital as a primary financial source for growing early-stage biotechnology companies. Currently, due to recent scientific advances, many […]
Determinants of Sustained Success in NFT Markets
by Emily Xu Abstract Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) took headlines by storm in 2021 and have since established their own marketplace. As public interest in the space wanes in 2022-2023, I characterize this emerging space and investigate factors that distinguish top-performing NFT projects within their respective market segments while controlling for external market and cryptocurrency exposures. […]
The Effect of Sustainability Reporting on ESG Ratings
by Arthur Luetkemeyer Abstract Over the past decade the concept of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing has emerged to aid investors to maximize return on investments while simultaneously supporting environmentally and socially friendly methods of production and operation. In this paper I investigate the effect of the quality of sustainability reporting on ESG ratings. […]
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 […]
User Loyalty and Willingness to Pay for a Music Streaming Subscription
By Nell Jones Music streaming has increased industry revenue and displaced piracy, but limited profits for artists. In this thesis, I examine user loyalty to streaming platforms, focusing on the asset specificity of features and estimating what users are willing to pay for each of these features. A structural equation model of survey data […]
For Love of the Game: A Study of Tournament Theory and Intrinsic Motivation in Dota 2
By YAO Shengjie This paper studies the effect of intrinsic motivation on the extrinsic incentives specified by tournament structure in tournament theory in the context of e-sports. It incorporates tournament theory and motivation crowding theory in the same framework, something that past literature have hinted towards but never formally done so. It also uses an […]
Incentives to Quit in Men’s Professional Tennis: An Empirical Test of Tournament Theory
By Will Walker This paper studies the influence of incentives on quitting behaviors in professional men’s tennis tournaments and offers broader implications to pay structures in the labor market. Precedent literature established that prize incentives and skill heterogeneity can impact player effort exertion. Prize incentives include prize money and indirect financial rewards (ranking points). Players […]
Gender Equality as a Result of Offering Employee Benefit Policies
By Meghan Mcaneny In this study, I investigate the relationship between the percentage of women in leadership in a company and its employee benefits. This paper uses data on individual firms’ benefits such as paid parental leave, familial support, and flexibility arrangements. Using OLS, I conclude that benefits that shift familial burdens from women to men, specifically paid paternity leave, result in more women in leadership. This creates an even playing field for women to be promoted as the company environment […]
Multiples Valuation and Abnormal Returns
By Joon Sang Yoon I investigate whether three commonly used valuation multiples—the Price-to-Earnings Ratio, the EV-to-EBITDA multiple, and the EV-to-Sales multiple—can be used to identify mispriced securities. I find that multiples are successful in identifying mispricing in both the equal and value weighted portfolios relative to the One-Factor CAPM. I further find, after controlling for […]
Implications of Teacher Tenure on Teacher Quality and Student Performance in North Carolina
By Dana Fenster This paper examines the relationship between teacher tenure and teacher quality in North Carolina, measured via student performance on the state End of Grade (EOG) standardized tests. After presenting a comprehensive synopsis of the current teacher tenure policy, I use data from the North Carolina Education Research Data Center (NCERDC) to compare […]
