Effects of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement on the Eqity Value of U.S. and Canadian Banks

This Article explains the effects of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement on the wealth position of shareholders of major U.S. and Canadian banks. Following the argument that stock prices in an efficient market should capture the effects of changes in regulation (both domestic and international), one would expect the prices of Canadian banks to decrease as they face substantial new competition. Likewise, the stock prices of U.S. banks operating in Canada should either rise or remain unchanged as a result of the FTA. If the greater power associated with Canadian operations is expected to add to risk-adjusted profits, stock prices of these U.S. banks should increase. To the extent that these potential profits are expected to be competed away in the Canadian markets, or are seen to be of a relatively insignificant nature, the prices of U.S. banks will not change

Effects of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement on the Eqity Value of U.S. and Canadian Banks

This Article explains the effects of the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement on the wealth position of shareholders of major U.S. and Canadian banks. Following the argument that stock prices in an efficient market should capture the effects of changes in regulation (both domestic and international), one would expect the prices of Canadian banks to decrease as they face substantial new competition. Likewise, the stock prices of U.S. banks operating in Canada should either rise or remain unchanged as a result of the FTA. If the greater power associated with Canadian operations is expected to add to risk-adjusted profits, stock prices of these U.S. banks should increase. To the extent that these potential profits are expected to be competed away in the Canadian markets, or are seen to be of a relatively insignificant nature, the prices of U.S. banks will not change

The North American Free Trade Agreement: A Market Analysis

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was the subject of heated debate in the United States Congress. The central issue of the debate was whether NAFTA would have a positive or negative economic impact on the parties to the treaty. This Article is a direct empirical market analysis that measures the perceived economic impact of NAFTA on the parties to the agreement and other states. The authors use stock market event analysis to study the effect of NAFTA on different sectors of the economy of the United States, Mexico, Canada, Europe, and the Asia/Pacific region. In doing so, the authors test the hypothetical predictions of other scholars and conclude that, contrary to speculation, NAFTA has had no meaningful economic impact on the economies of the United States and Canada, a strong positive economic effect on Mexico\u27s economy, a slight positive economic effect on Europe, and a slight negative economic effect on the Asia/Pacific region

An Investigation of the Pricing of Audit Services for Financial Institutions

In this paper we investigate audit pricing for financial institutions. We modify the standard audit fee model for industrial companies by incorporating measures of risk and complexity that are either unique to or more relevant for banks, and that are used by bank regulatory agencies. For a sample of 277 financial institutions in fiscal 2000, we find that audit fees are higher for banks having more transactions accounts, fewer securities as a percentage of total assets, lower levels of efficiency, and higher degrees of credit risk. Higher fees also obtain for savings institutions, for banks that are more involved in acquisition activity, and for institutions that are required by regulatory agencies to maintain higher levels of risk-adjusted capital. Our model reveals that the complexities and risks deemed most important by regulatory agencies are also those that tend to be priced by audit firms. The importance of the audit process for banks is likely to intensify in the future as regulatory changes increase the importance of market discipline in controlling bank risk-taking

Capital structure and political patronage: The case of Malaysia

This paper extends prior work on the links between political patronage and capital structure in developing economies.Three proxies of political patronage are developed and applied to a group of Malaysian firms over a 10-year period.We find a positive and significant link between leverage and each of the three measures of political patronage.We also find evidence of an indirect link between political patronage and capital structure through firm size and profitability

Secondary organic aerosol 3. Urban/regional scale model of size- and composition-resolved aerosols

The California Institute of Technology (CIT) three-dimensional urban/regional atmospheric model is used to perform comprehensive gas- and aerosol-phase simulations of the 8 September 1993 smog episode in the South Coast Air Basin of California (SoCAB) using the atmospheric chemical mechanism of part 1 [Griffin et al., 2002] and the thermodynamic module of part 2 [Pun et al., 2002]. This paper focuses primarily on simulations of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) and determination of the species and processes that lead to this SOA. Meteorological data and a gas and particulate emissions inventory for this episode were supplied directly by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. A summer 1993 atmospheric sampling campaign provides data against which the performance of the model is evaluated. Predictions indicate that SOA formation in the SoCAB is dominated by partitioning of hydrophobic secondary products of the oxidation of anthropogenic organics. The biogenic contribution to total SOA increases in the more rural eastern portions of the region, as does the fraction of hydrophilic SOA, the latter reflecting the increasing degree of oxidation of SOA species with atmospheric residence time

Construction and characterization of new piggyBac vectors for constitutive or inducible expression of heterologous gene pairs and the identification of a previously unrecognized activator sequence in piggyBac

BACKGROUND: We constructed and characterized several new piggyBac vectors to provide transposition of constitutively- or inducibly-expressible heterologous gene pairs. The dual constitutive control element consists of back-to-back copies of a baculovirus immediate early (ie1) promoter separated by a baculovirus enhancer (hr5). The dual inducible control element consists of back-to-back copies of a minimal cytomegalovirus (CMV(min)) promoter separated by a synthetic operator (TetO7), which drives transcription in the presence of a mutant transcriptional repressor plus tetracycline. RESULTS: Characterization of these vectors revealed an unexpected position effect, in which heterologous genes adjacent to the 3'- terminal region ("rightward" genes) were consistently expressed at higher levels than those adjacent to the 5'-terminal region ("leftward" genes) of the piggyBac element. This position effect was observed with all six heterologous genes examined and with both transcriptional control elements. Further analysis demonstrated that this position effect resulted from stimulation of rightward gene expression by the internal domain sequence of the 3'-terminal region of piggyBac. Inserting a copy of this sequence into the 5'- terminal repeat region of our new piggyBac vectors in either orientation stimulated leftward gene expression. Representative piggyBac vectors designed for constitutive or inducible expression of heterologous gene pairs were shown to be functional as insect transformation vectors. CONCLUSION: This study is significant because (a) it demonstrates the utility of a strategy for the construction of piggyBac vectors that can provide constitutive or inducible heterologous gene pair expression and (b) it reveals the presence of a previously unrecognized transcriptional activator in piggyBac, which is an important and increasingly utilized transposable element