Essays on the role of institutional ownership in bank governance

This dissertation consists of three chapters, focusing on U.S. bank holding companies from 2007 to 2013 to explore the role of institutional ownership in bank governance. In addition to the impact of ownership proportion, I explore the impact of ownership dispersion among institutional investors on bank safety, profitability and performance. In Chapter I, I show that the proportion of institutional ownership in banks has increased significantly after the recent financial crisis. Moreover, I examine the impact of institutional ownership proportion and dispersion on bank safety using capital ratios (i.e., Tier 1 and Tier 2 capital ratios) and credit risk (i.e. impaired loans, loan loss reserves, and net charge-off ratios). More importantly, I disentangle the impact of passive institutions (i.e., bank and insurance companies) from active institutions (i.e., mutual & pension funds, financial companies, private equity firms, and venture capitals). The results indicate that institutional investors alleviate risk and improve bank safety; active institutions significantly enhance capital ratios while passive institutions significantly alleviate credit risk. In Chapter II, I examine the impact of institutional ownership proportion and dispersion on bank profit margins (i.e., net interest, net noninterest, and net operating margins) and performance (i.e., ROA and Tobin’s Q). After disentangling passive institutions from active institutions, and controlling for the endogeneity of institutions decision to invest in bank holding companies using dynamic panel GMM two-step estimations with Windmaijer’s finite-sample robust standard errors, I find evidence that institutional investors, especially passive institutions, play a key role in bank governance by enhancing profitability and performance. In Chapter III, I summarize the findings of this dissertation and provide concluding remarks. Given the overall findings, bank safety, profitability and performance are not entirely the sole responsibility of executives and regulators. I provide evidence that the extent, type and distribution of institutional investors can be used as a proxy for additional monitoring of banks over and above that done by government regulators. Investors and regulators would do well to factor in institutional holdings in bank evaluations as institutional investors play a vital role not only in alleviating risk and improving safety but also in enhancing profitability and performance

Control and treatment of sulfur compounds specially sulfur oxides (SOx) emissions from the petroleum industry: A review

Sulfur compounds such as sulfur oxides (SOx) are generated and emitted from operations in the petroleum industry which have negative effects on the environment. This study gives a critical and detailed introduction to the control and treatment of sulfur compounds specially sulfur oxides (SOx) emissions from the petroleum industry. It begins with the sectors, main sources, and type of operations that generate SOx emissions; maximum effluent level of them from the petroleum industry; minimization, control, prevention and treatment techniques of these emissions from the petroleum industry. Among these techniques, sulfur recovery unit (SRU) which most often consists of a Claus process for bulk sulfur removal and subsequently a tail gas treatment unit (TGTU) for the remaining H2S removal (SCOT process, Beavon sulfur removal (BSR) process, and Wellman-Lord process) and flue-gas desulfurization (FGD) processes (once-through or regenerable) have been discussed in detail; and removal efficiencies and technical and economic aspects have been compared

Investigating the relationship between discourse markers, language proficiency and reading comprehension: a case of some Iranian university students

AbstractThis research aimed at investigating the relationship between discourse markers (DMs), language proficiency and reading comprehension of EFL university students. Three groups of students were selected to participate in the study. The participants in each group took a proficiency test and a reading comprehension test including two passages with various numbers of DMs. Two statistical measures such as UNANOVA and Matched T-Test were run. The study came to significant findings: (1) More DMs meant better comprehension. (2) Levels of proficiency did not display clashing results when dealing with a fewer number of DMs. (3) Manipulation of the passages was significant

Date stamping bubbles in Real Estate Investment Trusts

We test for the existence of single and multiple bubble periods in four Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) indices using the Supremum Augmented Dickey-Fuller (SADF) and the Generalized SADF. These methods allow us to estimate the beginning and the end of bubble periods. Our results provide statistically significant evidence of speculative bubbles in the REIT index and its three components: Equity, Mortgage and Hybrid REITs. These results may be valuable for real estate financial managers and for investors in REITs

Disentangling the impacts of industrial and global diversification on firm risk

We examine the impact of corporate diversification on firm risk exposure from 1998 to 2016. We find that both global and industrial diversification mitigate idiosyncratic and world market risk while having a negligible impact on U.S. market risk, but the effects vary before, during, and after the financial crisis of 2007–2009. Before the crisis, only global diversification mitigates idiosyncratic risk, but it increases firms\u27 exposure to world market risk. During the crisis, industrial diversification increases idiosyncratic risk, but both types of diversification increase exposure to U.S. market risk. After the crisis, both types of diversification increase firms\u27 exposure to U.S. market risk but have negligible impact on idiosyncratic and world market risk. Our findings remain robust after we control for the potential endogeneity of the diversification decision through various self-selection models

Reconciling Religion and Modernity in the Views of Motahhari and Fazlur Rahman

The encounter between Islam and the West during the modern period gave rise to new challenges regarding the relationship between religion and modernization, leading to intellectual debates among Muslim scholars. In an effort to reconcile the conflicts between religious traditions and the intellectual advancements of modernity, two distinct intellectual movements emerged: revisionist traditionalists and religious intellectualism. The former criticized the intellectual principles of modernity while adhering to orthodox theological and jurisprudential beliefs, whereas the latter embraced the epistemic core of modernity, including relativistic autonomous rationality and its associated theories, while questioning the theological and jurisprudential foundations of the religion. Consequently, each movement presented its own interpretation of religious rationality. This article aims to conduct a comparative study of Ayatollah Motahhari's views, representing the revisionist traditionalist approach, and the ideas of Fazlur Rahman, who adopts the religious intellectualist approach, in order to explore the compatibility between tradition and modernity

Investors’ Uncertainty and Stock Market Risk

We propose a novel approach to model investors' uncertainty using the conditional volatility of investors' sentiment. Working with weekly data on investor sentiment, six major U.S. stock indices, and alternative measures of uncertainty, we run various tests to validate our proposed measure. The estimates show that investors' uncertainty is greater during economic downturns, and it is linked with lower investors' sentiment. In addition, the results support the existence of a positive conditional correlation between sentiment and returns. This positive spillover between sentiment and returns is interpreted as a positive link between investors' uncertainty and market risk. We also find that investors’ uncertainty and market risk are strongly driven by their lagged values. Our measure consistently captures periods of high uncertainty as shown by a positive and highly statistically significant correlation with other existing measures of uncertainty

The Intertwined Renewable Energy–Water–Environment (REWE) Nexus Challenges and Opportunities: A Case Study of California

In our built environment, societal production of energy and clean water is inextricably linked to the natural resources from which they are derived. Acknowledgement and consideration of the coupling of energy, water, and the environment (the energy–water–environment nexus) will be critical to a sustainable future. This is particularly true as we transition away from historical energy sources (e.g., coal, petroleum, natural gas) and into the widespread adaptation of renewable energy (RE) sources (e.g., solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, bioenergy) as a strategy to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and consequently slow global climate change. This transition is fraught with both challenges and opportunities at the county, state, national, and international levels, as addressing future societal needs with respect to energy and water, and the environment requires recognition of their interdependence and development of new technologies and societal practices. In this study, the focus is on the RE–water–environment (REWE) nexus. In California, the REWE nexus is becoming increasingly important in achieving 100% clean electricity from eligible RE and zero-carbon resources by 2045 and in the face of climate change and population and economic growth. In this context, California’s RE deployment and renewable electrical generation, its RE legislative information, REWE nexus, and intertwined REWE nexus challenges and opportunities in California (e.g., administrative–legal, technology development, digitalization, and end-of-life RE waste) are comprehensively discussed to identify the knowledge gaps in this nexus and solutions

Investors’ Uncertainty and Stock Market Risk

We propose a novel approach to model investors' uncertainty using the conditional volatility of investors' sentiment. Working with weekly data on investor sentiment, six major U.S. stock indices, and alternative measures of uncertainty, we run various tests to validate our proposed measure. The estimates show that investors' uncertainty is greater during economic downturns, and it is linked with lower investors' sentiment. In addition, the results support the existence of a positive conditional correlation between sentiment and returns. This positive spillover between sentiment and returns is interpreted as a positive link between investors' uncertainty and market risk. We also find that investors’ uncertainty and market risk are strongly driven by their lagged values. Our measure consistently captures periods of high uncertainty as shown by a positive and highly statistically significant correlation with other existing measures of uncertainty