The Effect Of Tax Rate Change On Dividend Payout

President Bush’s 2003 tax cut has revived the topic of dividend policy. Dividend payout depends on many factors, such as earnings, size, and growth in addition to the tax rate. To study the effect of a change in tax rates on dividends, we need to control for other factors that may affect them. Following Fama and French (2001) approach, we divide our sample firms into three different categories characterized by profitability, investment opportunity, and size; and we estimate the averaged dividend forecast errors for four groups in each category. We find size to be the most important factor related to dividends when taxes are not taken into account. In addition, empirical evidence suggests that profitability is the only factor related to dividends when tax rates are included. In other words, the more profitable the firms are, the more likely they pay higher dividends as applicable tax rates decline

Option Pricing And Monte Carlo Simulations

The advantage of Monte Carlo simulations is attributed to the flexibility of their implementation. In spite of their prevalence in finance, we address their efficiency and accuracy in option pricing from the perspective of variance reduction and price convergence. We demonstrate that increasing the number of paths in simulations will increase computational efficiency. Moreover, using a t-test, we examine the significance of price convergence, measured as the difference between sample means of option prices. Overall, our illustrative results show that the Monte Carlo simulation prices are not statistically different from the Black-Scholes type closed-form solution prices

A Generalization Of Lattice Specifications For Currency Options

This article revisits the topic of two-state pricing of currency options.  It examines the models developed by Cox, Ross, and Rubinstein, Rendleman and Bartter, and Trigeorgis, and presents two alternative binomial models based on the continuous and discrete time Geometric Brownian Motion processes respectively.  This work generalizes the standard binomial approach incorporating the main existing models as particular cases.  The proposed models are straightforward, flexible, accommodate any drift condition and afford additional insights into binomial trees and lattice models in general.  Further, the alternative parameterizations are free of the negative aspects associated with the Cox, Ross, and Rubinstein model

Managerial dominance over the board and audit committee independence in financial institutions

International audienceThe purpose of this paper is to analyze whether the degree of control exercised by management affects the independence of the audit committee over the board of directors. Four characteristics of the bo ard are being examined; size, composition, CEO duality and manage ment ownership. Results from a samp le of 54 Lebanese banks operating in various Lebanese territories during the period 2009-2011 show that all of these banks created an audit committee between 2009-2011 and comply with Lebanese central ba nk regulations (BDL) to guara ntee their independence from management which requires the audit committee in Lebanese ba nks to be including independent members. Empirical results suggest that in Lebanese banks, managers can impair the effectiveness of audit committees by the presence of inside directors on the board and CEO duality

Redefining Onyx HD 500 in the Flow Diversion Era

We report the largest US case series results using Onyx HD-500 (EV3), a new liquid embolic agent, in the successful treatment of 21 patients with wide-neck intracranial aneurysms (mean size 4.5 mm), which are at increased risk of incomplete occlusion or recanalization with standard endovascular intervention utilizing detachable platinum coils. All aneurysms were located in the anterior circulation, and three aneurysms presented as acute subarachnoid hemorrhages. Complete aneurysm occlusion was present in 19 of 21 patients (90%). On six-month followup, one patient with an initially small residual neck progressed to total occlusion. Aneurysm recanalization was not detected in any patients on mean follow up of 8.9 months in 11 patients. Four patients experienced transient neurologic deficits in the immediate postoperative period and one in a delayed fashion. Embolization with the liquid embolic agent Onyx appears to be a safe and effective endovascular modality of treatment for wide-neck aneurysms or recurrent aneurysms that had previously failed treatment with detachable coils

Chronic treatment with Carvedilol improves ventricular function and reduces myocyte apoptosis in an animal model of heart failure

BACKGROUND: β-blocker treatment has emerged as an effective treatment modality for heart failure. Interestingly, β-blockers can activate both pro-apoptotic and anti-apoptotic pathways. Nevertheless, the mechanism for improved cardiac function seen with β-blocker treatment remains largely unknown. Carvedilol is a non-selective β-blocker with α-receptor blockade and antioxidant properties. We therefore studied the impact of the effects of carvedilol in an animal model of end-stage heart failure. RESULTS: To test whether chronic treatment with β-blockade decreases apoptosis, we treated myopathic turkeys with two dosages of carvedilol, 1 mg/kg (DCM(1)) and 20 mg/kg (DCM(20)), for four weeks and compared them to non-treated DCM animals (DCM(0)) and to control turkeys (CON). Echocardiographic measurements showed that non-treated DCM animals had a significantly lower fractional shortening (FS) when compared to CON (68.73 ± 1.37 vs. 18.76 ± 0.59%, p < 0.001). Both doses of carvedilol significantly improved FS (33.83 ± 10.11 and 27.73 ± 6.18% vs. 18.76 ± 0.59 % for untreated DCM, p < 0.001). DCM left ventricles were characterized by a higher percentage of apoptotic nuclei when compared to CON (5.64 ± 0.49 vs. 1.72 ± 0.12%, respectively p < 0.001). Both doses of carvedilol significantly reduced the number of apoptotic nuclei (2.32 ± 0.23% and 2.36 ± 0.26% 1 mg and 20 mg/kg respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Carvedilol improves ventricular function. Furthermore, treatment with carvedilol decreased the incidence of apoptosis in cardiac myocytes from failing hearts at both doses. These data suggest that the inhibition of apoptosis with carvedilol may lead to improvement in ventricular function and may underlie a beneficial effect of β-blockade independent of heart rate lowering effects

Preoperative spinal tumor embolization: an institutional experience with Onyx.

BACKGROUND: Preoperative embolization has the potential to decrease intraoperative blood loss and facilitate spinal cord decompression and tumor resection. OBJECTIVE: We report our institutional experience with the embolization of hypervascular extradural spinal tumors with Onyx as well as earlier embolic agents in a series of 28 patients. METHODS: A retrospective case review was conducted on patients undergoing preoperative transarterial embolization of a spinal tumor between 1995 and 2012 at our institution. RESULTS: Twenty-eight patients met the inclusion criteria, with a mean age of 60.6 years. Twenty-eight patients had metastatic tumors. In 14 (50%) patients the metastases were from renal cell carcinomas. Fifty-four vessels were embolized using PVA, NBCA, Onyx, coils, or embospheres. Sixteen patients were treated with Onyx, 6 patients with PVA, 3 patients with embospheres, 2 patients with NBCA, and 3 patients with a combination of embolic agents. The average decrease in tumor blush was 97.8% with Onyx versus 92.7% with the rest of the embolic agents (p=0.08). The estimated blood loss was 1616ml (range 350-5000ml). Blood loss was 750cm(3) on average with Onyx versus 1844 with the rest of the embolic agents (p=0.14). The mean length of stay was 16 days. The mortality rate was zero. Pre- and post-operative modified Rankin Score (mRS) did not differ significantly in the series (3.12 versus 3.10, respectively, p=0.9). CONCLUSION: In our experience, the use of transarterial tumor embolization as an adjunct for spinal surgery is a safe and feasible option